Vietnamese government-backed hackers have been recently spotted deploying cryptocurrency-mining malware alongside their regular cyber-espionage toolkits, Microsoft said on Monday.
The report highlights a growing trend in the cyber-security industry where an increasing number of state-backed hacking groups are also dipping their toes into regular cybercrime operations, making it harder to distinguish financially-motivated crime from intelligence gathering operations.
Tracked by Microsoft as Bismuth, this Vietnamese group has been active since 2012 and is more widely known under codenames like APT32 and OceanLotus.
