Octopus Trojan

The Octopus Trojan is a harmful cyber threat whose operators are targeting political entities in the Central Asia region currently. According to the sample of the Octopus Trojan that was analyzed by malware researchers, the threat is being spread as a fake copy of the Telegram Messenger, which was banned in this region recently. It is not uncommon for cybercriminals to take advantage of news of this sort by disguising their harmful applications as software products that their targets might be interested in using.

When the Octopus Trojan is initialized, it may plant its files in hidden system directories and, in addition to this, it might tamper with the Windows Registry keys to gain persistence. The operators of the Trojan are able to control the compromised computer remotely, therefore giving them the opportunity to download, copy, modify, block and delete the data stored on it. Naturally, this is a huge issue especially when the targets are people in politics who are guaranteed to work with sensitive information.

Although the attack has been limited to Central Asia for now, there is a chance that the operators of the Octopus Trojan might opt to diversify their targets and look into other parts of the world too. According to security researchers, the crime group responsible for this particular attack might be known as DustSquad, an organization supposedly originating from Russia that was involved in similar actions against countries in Central Asia previously.

The best way to stay protected from cyber-threats like the Octopus Trojan is to install an anti-virus software suite that will check all connections and files for potentially harmful behavior. In addition to this, it is strongly recommended to do your best to stay safe while browsing the Web – avoid dodgy or unknown websites, and make sure to never download files from sources that are not trustworthy.