{"id":1649,"date":"2025-05-27T08:39:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T08:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tsfactory.com\/forums\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2025-05-27T08:39:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T08:39:33","slug":"russia-linked-hackers-target-tajikistan-government-with-weaponized-word-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tsfactory.com\/forums\/blog\/russia-linked-hackers-target-tajikistan-government-with-weaponized-word-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia-Linked Hackers Target Tajikistan Government with Weaponized Word Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Russia-aligned threat actor known as TAG-110 has been observed conducting a spear-phishing campaign targeting Tajikistan using macro-enabled Word templates as an initial payload.<\/p>\n<p>The attack chain is a departure from the threat actor&#8217;s previously documented use of an HTML Application (.HTA) loader dubbed HATVIBE, Recorded Future&#8217;s Insikt Group said in an analysis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Given TAG-110&#8217;s historical targeting of public sector entities in Central Asia, this campaign is likely targeting government, educational, and research institutions within Tajikistan,&#8221; the cybersecurity company\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.recordedfuture.com\/research\/russia-aligned-tag-110-targets-tajikistan-with-macro-enabled\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These cyber espionage operations likely aim to gather intelligence for influencing regional politics or security, particularly during sensitive events like elections or geopolitical tensions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>TAG-110, also called UAC-0063, is the name assigned to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2025\/01\/uac-0063-expands-cyber-attacks-to.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">threat activity group<\/a>\u00a0that&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2024\/11\/russian-hackers-deploy-hatvibe-and.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">known<\/a>\u00a0for its\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2025\/01\/russian-linked-hackers-target.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">targeting<\/a>\u00a0of European embassies, as well as other organizations in Central Asia, East Asia, and Europe. It&#8217;s believed to be active at least since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Assessed to share overlaps with the Russian nation-state hacking crew APT28, activities associated with the threat actor were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2023\/05\/sophisticated-downex-malware-campaign.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first documented<\/a>\u00a0by Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender in May 2023 in connection with a campaign that delivered a malware codenamed DownEx (aka STILLARCH) targeting government entities in Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>However, it was the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) that formally assigned the moniker UAC-0063 that same month after it\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2023\/05\/cyber-attacks-strike-ukraines-state.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">uncovered<\/a>\u00a0cyber attacks targeting state bodies in the country using malware strains like LOGPIE, CHERRYSPY (aka DownExPyer), DownEx, and PyPlunderPlug.<\/p>\n<p>The latest campaign aimed at Tajikistan organizations, observed starting January 2025, demonstrates a shift away from HATVIBE, distributed via HTA-embedded spear-phishing attachments, in favor of macro-enabled Word template (.DOTM) files, underscoring an evolution of their tactics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Previously, TAG-110 leveraged macro-enabled Word documents to deliver HATVIBE, an HTA-based malware, for initial access,&#8221; Recorded Future said. &#8220;The newly detected documents do not contain the embedded HTA HATVIBE payload for creating a scheduled task and instead leverage a global template file placed in the Word startup folder for persistence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2025\/05\/russia-linked-hackers-target-tajikistan.html\">Read the Full Story Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source: The Hacker News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Russia-aligned threat actor known as TAG-110 has been observed conducting a spear-phishing campaign targeting Tajikistan using macro-enabled Word templates as an initial payload. The attack chain is a departure from the threat actor&#8217;s previously documented use of an HTML Application (.HTA) loader dubbed HATVIBE, Recorded Future&#8217;s Insikt Group said in an analysis. &#8220;Given TAG-110&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Russia-Linked Hackers Target Tajikistan Government with Weaponized Word Documents - Community<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tsfactory.com\/forums\/blog\/russia-linked-hackers-target-tajikistan-government-with-weaponized-word-documents\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia-Linked Hackers Target Tajikistan Government with Weaponized Word Documents - Community\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Russia-aligned threat actor known as TAG-110 has been observed conducting a spear-phishing campaign targeting Tajikistan using macro-enabled Word templates as an initial payload. 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