A Hacking Group Spotted Combining Cybercrime and Cyberespionage

A suspected Belarusian hacking group has targeted Ukraine; ‘Unusual’ crime cross-over. According to security researchers, a hacker gang aligned with Belarusian government interests appears to be combining cybercrime with cyberespionage.

The group, known as Asylum Ambuscade, since 2020 has been “a cybercrime group that is doing some cyberespionage on the side,” said security firm Eset in a new report written by malware researcher Matthieu Faou. “It is quite unusual to catch a cybercrime group running dedicated cyberespionage operations.”

On the cybercrime front, the gang primarily targets individual banking users, cryptocurrency dealers, and small and medium-sized businesses in North America and Europe, with over 4,500 victims reported by Eset.

“While the goal of targeting cryptocurrency traders is quite obvious – stealing cryptocurrency – we don’t know for sure how Asylum Ambuscade monetizes its access to SMBs,” Eset said. “It is possible the group sells the access to other crimeware groups who might, for example, deploy ransomware,” although it’s seen no signs this is actually happening.

In terms of espionage, Eset stated that the group has primarily targeted European and Central Asian targets. Proofpoint coined the word – ambuscade is an archaic way of expressing ambush – and first publicly exposed the group and its operations in the

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