Excel-lerating cyberattacks. [Research Saturday]

CyberWire Daily

While our team is out on winter break, please enjoy this episode of Research Saturday.

This week, we are joined by ⁠Tom Hegel⁠, Principal Threat Researcher from ⁠SentinelLabs⁠ research team, to discuss their work on "Ghostwriter | New Campaign Targets Ukrainian Government and Belarusian Opposition." The latest Ghostwriter campaign, linked to Belarusian government espionage, is actively targeting Ukrainian military and government entities as well as Belarusian opposition activists using weaponized Excel documents.

SentinelLabs identified new malware variants and tactics, including obfuscated VBA macros that deploy malware via DLL files, with payload delivery seemingly controlled based on a target’s location and system profile. The campaign, which began preparation in mid-2024 and became active by late 2024, appears to be an evolution of previous Ghostwriter operations, combining disinformation with cyberattacks to further political and military objectives.

The research can be found here:

More description

While our team is out on winter break, please enjoy this episode of Research Saturday.

This week, we are joined by ⁠Tom Hegel⁠, Principal Threat Researcher from ⁠SentinelLabs⁠ research team, to discuss their work on "Ghostwriter | New Campaign Targets Ukrainian Government and Belarusian Opposition." The latest Ghostwriter campaign, linked to Belarusian government espionage, is actively targeting Ukrainian military and government entities as well as Belarusian opposition activists using weaponized Excel documents.

SentinelLabs identified new malware variants and tactics, including obfuscated VBA macros that deploy malware via DLL files, with payload delivery seemingly controlled based on a target’s location and system profile. The campaign, which began preparation in mid-2024 and became active by late 2024, appears to be an evolution of previous Ghostwriter operations, combining disinformation with cyberattacks to further political and military objectives.

The research can be found here:

2025-12-27 23 min
Listen elsewhere

Available Results

Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.