Chinas Cyber Rampage: Knownsec Leaks, VMware Hacks, and AI Phishing Frenzy!

This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

My name’s Ting, your not-so-humble cyber oracle, and wow—have the past few days been a wild ride for China’s covert digital operations. If you thought phishing scams in your inbox were where the story stopped, buckle up—because Red Alert: China’s Daily Cyber Moves just hit a new intensity level.

We start, naturally, with the breach to end all breaches: Knownsec, one of China’s crown-jewel cybersecurity firms tied directly to the government, just had over 12,000 classified documents blown wide open. On November 2, someone swiped files revealing not just the usual catalog of spyware and snooperware, but technical recipes for state-made malware, full source code, and sprawling lists of global targets. The headlines weren’t exaggerating. The breach laid bare juicy detail: for instance, remote access trojans targeting Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, even fancy hardware hacks like a malicious “power bank” that uploads files while charging your phone. You catch my drift: every device a potential spy. While the files stirred up security forums and Twitter, or X if you’re into rebrands, China’s Foreign Ministry basically shrugged, with Mao Ning saying she’d “never heard of Knownsec leaking,” which is about as credible as me claiming I’ve never seen a firewall.

But Knownsec was just the opener. If your organization runs VMware, Cisco, or Exchange—and honestly, who doesn’t—CISA and the FBI spent this week on DEFCON duty. Just in—CISA’s dealt with CVE-2025-41244 (VMware Tools), a critical flaw now actively exploited, mostly attributed to Chinese actors. Unpatched systems could be hijacked for privilege escalation. Cisco Secure Firewall gear is under fire via CVE-2025-20333 and 20362, with new variants causing denial-of-service by making network boxes reboot randomly. Forensics teams have traced IPs back to Chinese-speaking clusters, matching attack DNA from that Knownsec leak. If you see emergency reloads or logs with weird user-agents on your network perimeter, assume it’s active exploitation—patch and segment now.

The pattern this week? Legacy vulnerabilities weaponized anew. American non-profits, research think tanks, and financial systems are all targets. Reports from both Symantec and Carbon Black flagged a China-backed APT using old IIS and Log4j bugs for long-term persistence, siphoning policy intel. Don’t underestimate living-off-the-land: attackers are repurposing genuine IT tools, like the latest campaign using legitimate PDQ Deploy to move Medusa ransomware. Victims see ransom notes galore, crippled endpoints, then a tidy exfiltration of data courtesy of RClone disguised as lsp.exe.

The phishing game is also supercharged: Volexity just ousted China-aligned UTA0388 for “rapport-building phishing,” drawing targets (often US policy or research staff) into lengthy, fake-conversation chains before dropping malware-laden archives. They’re using AI—large language models—to compose emails, even mixing English, Mandarin, and German, plus bizarre payloads, everything from Buddhist chants to porn fragments! GOVERSHELL, the new malware, evolved mid-campaign—starting with command-line basics and zooming to encrypted WebSocket comms.

CISA, NSA, and partners released urgent guidance Thursday: lock down Exchange, update VMware, enable network monitoring for anomalous persistence, and enforce MFA everywhere. Also, threat intelligence streams flagged stealthy attempts to probe voting infrastructure and supply chains, warning that China’s playbook is starting to feel less like isolated espionage and more like dry runs for full-scale disruption.

What’s next? Some forecasters suggest escalation: With AI in the mix, future attacks could become self-improving, targeting both civilian and military domains. Whether it’s deepfake campaigns leading up to the elections, or new wormable exploits automatically weaponized, China’s cyber moves keep rewriting the rules.

Thanks for tuning in—subscribe and track every move, because in cyberspace, the offense always gets the first cyber-punch. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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