Chinese state hackers target telcos with new malware toolkit

Cisco Talos reports that China-linked APT activity tracked as UAT-9244 has targeted South American telecommunications providers since 2024 using three previously undocumented malware families: TernDoor (Windows backdoor using DLL side‑loading and an embedded driver), PeerTime (multi-architecture ELF backdoor leveraging BitTorrent for P2P C2), and BruteEntry (brute-force scanner that builds Operational Relay Boxes). The report describes deployment and persistence techniques across Windows, Linux, and network-edge devices, and provides indicators of compromise and mitigation guidance for defenders.