Tropic Trooper Expands Espionage to Middle East, Targets Human Rights Organizations

Tropic Trooper (aka KeyBoy/Pirate Panda) has expanded operations into the Middle East, running a persistent campaign against government bodies and human-rights-related entities since mid-2023/2024. The campaign leveraged a China Chopper web shell on an Umbraco server, DLL search-order hijacking to load malicious DLLs and deploy the Crowdoor loader and SparrowDoor backdoor, and used tools like Fscan and Swor for discovery, lateral movement, and persistence, indicating a sophisticated cyber-espionage operation.