An infamous Chinese hacking group named Cicada has been using the good old VLC Media Player to deploy malware onto computers across at least three continents.
The hacker group is allegedly affiliated with the Chinese government, and has been known as menuPass, Stone Panda, APT10, Potassium, and Red Apollo since its inception in 2006.
According to Bleeping Computer, “the targets involve a wide range of entities involved in legal, governmental, or religious activities. Non-governmental organisations have also been targeted.” Once the hackers gain access to a machine, they have been discovered to control it for up to nine months. They can gain access to all files, download anything at will, and scour systems processes.
Targets have been discovered in the US, Hong Kong, India, Italy, and Canada.
