Mustang Panda APT Group Targets Europe With PlugX Backdoor

Mustang Panda distributed PlugX malware through malicious optical disc image (ISO) files to entities in Europe. The threat actor leveraged malicious shortcut (LNK) files and dynamic-link library (DLL) search-order-hijacking to carry out the four-stage infection chain. Microsoft Windows registry run keys were used for persistence while symmetric cryptography and standard encoding were used to exfiltrate sensitive data.