Machete: The threat actor group Machete has been seen targeting the Venezuelan Army. The group, who has no known ties to a specific nation has been active since 2010. In the past, the group has targeted many different groups with different tactics. Other areas around Venezuela such as neighboring countries have been targeted in the same way by the group. The group uses the basic tactic of spear-phishing to infect computers, using documents in the emails that have been stolen from previous attacks. The group uses its own malware that has been seen for the past year while making some small changes. The attacks on the Venezuelan Army are still ongoing and the group has been able to steal terabytes of data. The group is believed to be Spanish-speaking, but not related to a specific nation-state.
Analyst Notes
Most of the Spanish speaking groups that have been seen are cyber-criminal groups, but this group carrying out cyber-espionage might point to it being one of the first that has a possibility of being related to a nation-state.
