SideWinder has distributed malicious emails with documents.
Suspected Indian state-sponsored advanced persistent threat operation Sidewinder have deployed intrusions with spear-phishing emails and geofenced payloads.
Aimed at various government entities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka with the StealerBot malware, SideWinder has distributed malicious emails with documents, which led to the injection of payloads exploiting old Microsoft Office remote code execution flaws to execute StealerBot.
According to an Acronis analysis, the .NET-based StealerBot malware also enables reverse shell delivery and credential, file, keystroke, and screenshot gathering activities.
"SideWinder has demonstrated consistent activity over time, maintaining a steady pace of operations without prolonged inactivity — a pattern that reflects organisational continuity and sustained intent," said Acronis researchers, who noted the threat group's utilisation of geofenced and time-limited payloads to be indicative of its elevated control and precision.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
