Description

A zero-day vulnerability in WPS Office, tracked as CVE-2024-7262, has been exploited by the South Korean-linked hacker group APT-C-60 to deliver malware, according to cybersecurity firm ESET. This vulnerability, which allows remote code execution, has been used to deploy a custom backdoor named SpyGlace against targets in East Asia. Chinese cybersecurity firm DBAPPSecurity has also reported on this issue, noting that the same vulnerability has been used to deliver malware to users in China. In China, APT-C-60 is known as Pseudo Hunter, and reports suggest the group has targeted entities both within South Korea and elsewhere. ESET's investigation revealed that a malicious document exploiting CVE-2024-7262 was uploaded to VirusTotal in late February. The attackers created seemingly benign spreadsheets that triggered the exploit when users interacted with specific cells. Although WPS Office developer Kingsoft released a patch for the vulnerability in March 2024 with version 12.1.0.16412, the patch initially only addressed part of the issue. A subsequent update was necessary to fix a remaining flaw, leading to the identification of an additional vulnerability, CVE-2024-7263. WPS Office, a popular office suite with over 500 million active users globally, presents an attractive target for exploit developers. ESET has released technical details and indicators of compromise (IoCs) related to the APT-C-60 attacks to aid in identifying and mitigating the threat.