Operation ForumTroll
- First seen
- 2025-03-15 00:00:00
- Primary motivation
- espionage
- Sophistication
- advanced
- Resource level
- government
- Actor type
- nation-state
- Profile updated
- 2026-07-07 12:21:08
Targeted industries: media-and-entertainment education-and-nonprofits government-and-public-sector
Targeted regions: country_code:ru
Context
Operation ForumTroll is a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign discovered by Kaspersky in mid-March 2025. The attack exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Google Chrome, identified as CVE-2025-2783, which allowed attackers to bypass the browser's security features. Victims were infected by clicking on personalized phishing links in emails, allegedly from the organizers of the "Primakov Readings" forum, targeting media outlets, educational institutions, and government organizations in Russia. The goal of the attack appears to be espionage, and the campaign is believed to be the work of a state-sponsored APT group. Google quickly released an update to fix the vulnerability after being notified by Kaspersky.
Exploited vulnerabilities
- CVE-2025-2783 (vulnerability)
Reports & references
- Kaspersky — 115989 (report)