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Pakistan-Linked SideCopy Targets Afghanistan Finance Ministry with Xeno RAT

·Source: The Hacker News

Updated:

Executive Summary

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a spear-phishing campaign likely undertaken by the Pakistan-aligned SideCopy group targeting Afghanistan's Ministry of Finance with an open-source remote access trojan called Xeno RAT. "The campaign opens with a spear phishing delivery - a ZIP archive containing a malicious LNK file bearing a carefully crafted Pashto-language filename,"

Analysis

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a spear-phishing campaign likely undertaken by the Pakistan-aligned SideCopy group targeting Afghanistan's Ministry of Finance with an open-source remote access trojan called Xeno RAT. "The campaign opens with a spear phishing delivery - a ZIP archive containing a malicious LNK file bearing a carefully crafted Pashto-language filename,"
Source Attribution

Originally published by The Hacker News on Jun 2, 2026.

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