China-linked advanced persistent threat group APT41 appears to have compromised a government-affiliated institute in Taiwan that conducts research on advanced computing and associated technologies.

The intrusion began in July 2023, with the threat actor gaining initial access to the victim environment via undetermined means. Since then, it has deployed multiple malware tools, including the well-known ShadowPad remote access Trojan (RAT), the Cobalt Strike post compromise tool, and a custom loader for injecting malware using a 2018 Windows remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2018-0824).