TwoSail Junk

Aliases: Operation Poisoned News

First seen
2020-01-01 00:00:00
Primary motivation
espionage
Sophistication
intermediate
Resource level
team
Actor type
nation-state
Profile updated
2026-07-07 12:07:53

Targeted industries: media-and-entertainment government-and-public-sector technology-and-telecommunications

Targeted regions: country_code:hk country_code:mo

Context

TwoSail Junk directs visitors to its exploit site by posting links within the threads of forum discussions, or creating new topic threads of their own. To date, dozens of visits were recorded from within Hong Kong, with a couple from Macau. The technical details around the functionality of the iOS implant, called LightSpy, and related infrastructure, reveal a low-to-mid capable actor. However, the iOS implant is a modular and exhaustively functional iOS surveillance framework.

Reports & references

  • Kaspersky — 96407 (report)
  • Kaspersky — 99574 (report)
  • redpacketsecurity.com — Operation Poisoned News Hong Kong Users Targeted With Mobile Malware Via Local News Links (report)

External references