"Chinese Hackers Employ HTML Smuggling to Breach European Ministries via PlugX"

Chinese hackers, possibly associated with the Mustang Panda group, have been using HTML smuggling techniques to infiltrate European Foreign Affairs ministries and embassies with the PlugX remote access trojan. The campaign, known as SmugX, has been ongoing since December 2022 and has low detection rates due to its delivery methods. The decoy documents attached to spear-phishing emails target diplomats and government entities in several European countries. PlugX, a modular trojan, allows the hackers to carry out various malicious activities, including file theft and command execution. The threat actors have also attempted to erase evidence of their activities.