The Cloud Atlas advanced persistent threat (APT) group remained active during the first half of 2025, continuing cyber-espionage campaigns against organizations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The group primarily relied on phishing emails carrying malicious Microsoft Word documents that exploit CVE-2018-0802, a known vulnerability in the Microsoft Office Equation Editor. By targeting outdated Office installations, Cloud Atlas was able to execute arbitrary code and gain an initial foothold in victim environments, demonstrating its ongoing focus on exploiting legacy weaknesses to compromise high-value targets. After exploitation of CVE-2018-0802, the infection process unfolds through a multi-stage malware chain. The malicious document retrieves additional payloads from attacker-controlled infrastructure, deploying several custom backdoors including VBShower, PowerShower, VBCloud, and CloudAtlas. These components enable remote command execution, system reconnaissance, credential harvesting, and data exfiltration. Encrypted scripts and cloud-based command-and-control channels are used to evade detection, reflecting the group’s increasing technical maturity and operational discipline. To maintain persistence, the malware creates scheduled tasks disguised as legitimate system services, ensuring continued access after system reboots. Later-stage backdoors leverage cloud storage services and WebDAV communication to blend malicious traffic with normal network activity. Modular plugins support targeted data collection, particularly office documents and sensitive files. The campaign has impacted telecommunications, government, construction, and industrial sectors, particularly in Russia and Belarus, posing a serious threat due to its stealthy delivery methods and advanced post-exploitation capabilities.
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