Cyber Threat Report: 'RedHotel: A Prolific, Chinese State-Sponsored Group Operating at a Global Scale'

This report from Recorded Future's Insikt Group outlines activity by the Red Hotel intrusion set. RedHotel is identified as a prominent Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group, which operates with a dual mission of intelligence gathering and economic espionage. While frequently targeting government organizations for traditional intelligence collection, RedHotel has also focused on COVID-19 research and technology R&D institutions. Notably, in July 2022, the group likely compromised a US state legislature. Their infrastructure communicates with RedHotel-attributed ShadowPad and Cobalt Strike C2 IP addresses. RedHotel maintains two distinct infrastructure clusters—one for reconnaissance and initial access, and another for long-term network control via command-and-control servers. Active since at least 2019, RedHotel also employs a mix of offensive security tools, closed-source shared capabilities, and bespoke tooling across their campaigns.

Audit

Perform audits or scans of systems, permissions, insecure software, insecure configurations, etc. to identify potential weaknesses.

Behavior Prevention on Endpoint

Use capabilities to prevent suspicious behavior patterns from occurring on endpoint systems. This could include suspicious process, file, API call, etc. behavior.

Antivirus/Antimalware

Use signatures or heuristics to detect malicious software.

User Training

Train users to be aware of access or manipulation attempts by an adversary to reduce the risk of successful spearphishing, social engineering, and other techniques that involve user interaction.

Pre-compromise

This category is used for any applicable mitigation activities that apply to techniques occurring before an adversary gains Initial Access, such as Reconnaissance and Resource Development techniques.

Application Isolation and Sandboxing

Restrict execution of code to a virtual environment on or in transit to an endpoint system.

Exploit Protection

Use capabilities to detect and block conditions that may lead to or be indicative of a software exploit occurring.

Vulnerability Scanning

Vulnerability scanning is used to find potentially exploitable software vulnerabilities to remediate them.

Privileged Account Management

Manage the creation, modification, use, and permissions associated to privileged accounts, including SYSTEM and root.

Update Software

Perform regular software updates to mitigate exploitation risk.

Network Segmentation

Architect sections of the network to isolate critical systems, functions, or resources. Use physical and logical segmentation to prevent access to potentially sensitive systems and information. Use a DMZ to contain any internet-facing services...

Network Intrusion Prevention

Use intrusion detection signatures to block traffic at network boundaries.

Data Loss Prevention

Use a data loss prevention (DLP) strategy to categorize sensitive data, identify data formats indicative of personal identifiable information (PII), and restrict exfiltration of sensitive data.(Citation: PurpleSec Data Loss Prevention)

Restrict Web-Based Content

Restrict use of certain websites, block downloads/attachments, block Javascript, restrict browser extensions, etc.

Software Configuration

Implement configuration changes to software (other than the operating system) to mitigate security risks associated to how the software operates.

User Account Management

Manage the creation, modification, use, and permissions associated to user accounts.

Operating System Configuration

Make configuration changes related to the operating system or a common feature of the operating system that result in system hardening against techniques.

Disable or Remove Feature or Program

Remove or deny access to unnecessary and potentially vulnerable software to prevent abuse by adversaries.

Restrict File and Directory Permissions

Restrict access by setting directory and file permissions that are not specific to users or privileged accounts.

Code Signing

Enforce binary and application integrity with digital signature verification to prevent untrusted code from executing.

Execution Prevention

Block execution of code on a system through application control, and/or script blocking.

Restrict Library Loading

Prevent abuse of library loading mechanisms in the operating system and software to load untrusted code by configuring appropriate library loading mechanisms and investigating potential vulnerable software.