CW+ Premium Content/CW Asia-Pacific

A new advanced persistent threat (APT) group has launched sophisticated cyber attacks against government and military targets in Southeast Asia, underscoring the growth of cyber threats against high-profile organisations in the region. Dubbed Dark Pink, the new threat actor, uncovered by cyber security company Group-IB, is notable due to their focus on attacking branches of the military and government agencies. As of December 2022, the group had breached the cyber defences of six organisations in ASEAN, including those in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam. The first successful attack took place in June 2022, when the threat actors accessed the network of a religious group in Vietnam. After the initial breach, no other attack attributable to Dark Pink was registered until August 2022, when Group-IB analysts found that the threat actors had gained access to the network of a Vietnamese non-profit organisation. Subsequently, Dark Pink ramped up their activities in the last four months of the year, attacking a ...