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Eric Geller@cybersecuritydive.com
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SentinelOne, a cybersecurity firm, has revealed that it was the target of a year-long reconnaissance campaign by China-linked espionage groups, identified as APT15 and UNC5174. This campaign, dubbed "PurpleHaze," involved network reconnaissance and intrusion attempts, ultimately aiming to gather strategic intelligence and potentially establish access for future conflicts. SentinelOne discovered the campaign when the suspected Chinese spies tried to break into the security vendor's own servers in October 2024. The attempted intrusion on SentinelOne's systems failed, but it prompted a deeper investigation into the broader campaign and the malware being used.
The investigation revealed that over 70 organizations across multiple sectors globally were targeted, including a South Asian government entity and a European media organization. The attacks spanned from July 2024 to March 2025 and involved the use of ShadowPad malware and post-exploitation espionage activity. These targeted sectors include manufacturing, government, finance, telecommunications, and research. The coordinated attacks are believed to be connected to Chinese government spying programs. SentinelOne has expressed high confidence that the PurpleHaze and ShadowPad activity clusters can be attributed to China-nexus threat actors. This incident underscores the persistent threat that Chinese cyber espionage actors pose to global industries and public sector organizations. The attack on SentinelOne also highlights that cybersecurity vendors themselves are prime targets for these groups, given their deep visibility into client environments and ability to disrupt adversary operations. SentinelOne recommends that more proactive steps are taken to prevent future attacks.
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