U.S. exposes Chinese malware Taidoor – Weekly privacy news, August 7, 2020
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Joshua Long
Privacy News Online’s weekly video recap includes the top privacy stories, hosted by tech news commentator Brian Tong.
Each episode includes a cybersecurity news segment hosted by Intego’s Chief Security Analyst, Josh Long. This week’s video features the following security story.
CISA, FBI, DoD expose new variants of Taidor malware, publicly accuse China
On Monday, three United States government agencies—the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense (DoD)—issued a joint Malware Analysis Report detailing a Remote Access Trojan known as Taidoor. The earliest known variants of Taidoor were first observed in 2008, but the latest variants detailed in the report appear to have been in the wild since early 2019.
According to the report, the FBI “has high confidence that Chinese government actors are using malware variants in conjunction with proxy servers to maintain a presence on victim networks and to further network exploitation.”
The report concludes with a number of recommendations for protecting computers from Taidoor and other threats, first and foremost: use antivirus software, and keep it up to date.
The Taidoor variants described in the report are designed to infect Windows operating systems. If a Mac variant comes to light, we’ll be sure to let you know.
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