Cyber threats / Threat actors

Shadow-Earth-053

CN Suspected sponsor: China
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APAC targets
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Techniques
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Incidents
0
News · 30d
Profile

SHADOW-EARTH-053 is a China-aligned threat group exploiting unpatched Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities, specifically CVE-2021-26855, to conduct cyberespionage against government and defense-linked targets across Asia and Europe. The group primarily deploys ShadowPad malware, utilizing techniques such as credential dumping, tunneling tools, and lateral movement via WMIC. They have also been observed installing web shells for persistence and leveraging a custom ExchangeExport tool to extract high-value mailbox contents. Additionally, low-confidence associations with Noodle RAT and CVE-2025-55182 have been noted in their operations.

ATT&CK techniques
MITRE ATT&CK has no technique mapping for this actor.
Incidents attributed
  • No incident in the register is attributed to this actor.
In the news
  • No Asia-Pacific article names this actor yet.
Targets
No victim countries in the sources.
Relevance to the EU
EU relevance: Low
No EU member state among its known victims and no overlap with EU projects
No EU cooperation projects recorded in its target countries.
References
Sources: MISP