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Under Active Attack

Executive Summary

In early 2025, a previously unseen collaboration between advanced persistent threat groups Gamaredon and Turla was discovered in Ukraine. Utilizing ESET telemetry, researchers identified co-compromises in which Gamaredon provided initial access using spearphishing and malicious PowerShell-based tools (such as PteroGraphin and PteroOdd), allowing Turla to deploy its exclusive Kazuar backdoor on select high-value targets. The attacks, attributed to Russian FSB-linked groups, targeted governmental entities and leveraged encrypted channels, PowerShell scripting, and multi-stage malware delivery via compromised web services and cloud platforms. Impact was mainly concentrated on the potential exfiltration of sensitive national intelligence.

This incident underscores a growing trend of threat actor collaboration within nation-state cyber operations, blurring lines between operational roles and increasing attack efficiency. The overlapping TTPs and use of novel access and persistence mechanisms signal heightened complexity in the Eastern European threat landscape, demanding urgent operational and strategic defensive improvements.

Why This Matters Now

This breach demonstrates an escalation in Russian-aligned APT synergy and technical sophistication, revealing both increased collaboration across threat groups and the ability to combine access vectors for maximizing impact against national critical infrastructure. With geopolitical tensions rising and threat actor tactics evolving rapidly, organizations face elevated risks that require immediate security modernization focused on detection, segmentation, and rapid response.

Attack Path Analysis

Related CVEs

MITRE ATT&CK® Techniques

Potential Compliance Exposure

Sector Implications

Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

The incident highlighted insufficient segmentation, weak detection of lateral movement, and the necessity for encrypted, monitored east-west traffic to meet regulatory and zero trust standards.

Cloud Native Security Fabric Mitigations and ControlsCNSF

A multi-layered CNSF Zero Trust approach—especially leveraging microsegmentation, encrypted traffic enforcement, egress filtering, and anomaly/threat detection—would have provided critical barriers against each major phase of this campaign by blocking unauthorized access, constraining lateral spread, detecting anomalous PowerShell activity, and stopping outbound C2 and exfiltration traffic.

Initial Compromise

Control: Threat Detection & Anomaly Response

Mitigation: Anomalous script execution and suspicious PowerShell downloads would be detected and alerted.

Privilege Escalation

Control: Kubernetes Security (AKF) / Zero Trust Segmentation

Mitigation: Policy and namespace restrictions would prevent privilege escalation and lateral movement between sensitive pods/namespaces.

Lateral Movement

Control: East-West Traffic Security

Mitigation: Lateral east-west communications between workloads would be tightly controlled and unauthorized flows blocked.

Command & Control

Control: Cloud Firewall (ACF) / Inline IPS (Suricata)

Mitigation: Outbound traffic to known malicious endpoints or cloud/telegra.ph APIs used for C2 would be detected or blocked inline.

Exfiltration

Control: Egress Security & Policy Enforcement

Mitigation: Sensitive outbound data transfers to untrusted or unknown domains are blocked or flagged for investigation.

Impact (Mitigations)

Centralized SOC visibility and automated enforcement reduce dwell time and persistence opportunities.

Impact at a Glance

Affected Business Functions

  • Government Operations
  • National Security
  • Intelligence Services
Operational Disruption

Estimated downtime: 30 days

Financial Impact

Estimated loss: $5,000,000

Data Exposure

Potential exposure of classified government documents, intelligence reports, and sensitive communications.

Recommended Actions

  • • Deploy east-west microsegmentation and workload-based policies to block unauthorized lateral movement within cloud and hybrid environments.
  • • Enforce strict egress controls and cloud firewall rules that include application-level FQDN filtering to disrupt malicious C2 and data exfiltration paths.
  • • Integrate inline network anomaly detection and behavioral analytics to quickly detect and respond to covert tool usage such as custom PowerShell scripts.
  • • Strengthen Kubernetes and container segmentation with pod identity enforcement and namespace allow-listing to prevent privilege escalation and unauthorized script execution.
  • • Maintain centralized, multicloud network visibility and automated response capabilities to rapidly contain and investigate any detected intrusion attempts or anomalous workload behaviors.

Secure the Paths Between Cloud Workloads

A cloud-native security fabric that enforces Zero Trust across workload communication—reducing attack paths, compliance risk, and operational complexity.

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