Threat intel
Volt Typhoon Used Covert 'Silent Train' Network in Four Zero-Day Exploitation Campaigns
The China-nexus cyber espionage group Volt Typhoon has been attributed to a now-disrupted covert access network called Silent Train that was used for zero-day exploitation and strategic access, according to a Lumen Technologies Black Lotus Labs report shared with The Hacker News.
The China-nexus cyber espionage group known as Volt Typhoon has been attributed to a covert access network dubbed Silent Train that has since been disrupted, according to a report from Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs shared with The Hacker News.
Per the report, Silent Train was put to use for zero-day exploitation and strategic access, and was employed across four zero-day exploitation campaigns. The network was first identified in late 2023.
"First identified in late 2023, Silent Train uses rotating chains of compromised SOHO, IoT, and enterprise infrastructure," Black Lotus Labs said in the report.
The description indicates the operation relied on a constantly shifting mesh of hijacked small-office/home-office devices, Internet of Things hardware and enterprise systems. Such a structure can help operators obscure the origin of their traffic and maintain resilient access, and rotating through compromised infrastructure rather than relying on fixed servers can make a network harder for defenders to map and dismantle.
Details of the disruption, the specific vulnerabilities exploited in the four campaigns, and the victims targeted were not included in the available excerpt of the report. The findings come from Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs, and the attribution to Volt Typhoon is as described in the source material. Volt Typhoon is characterized in the source as a China-nexus cyber espionage group. Further technical indicators or remediation guidance were not provided in the item.
Source: The Hacker News
