CL-STA-0043
No sourced public emblem in this profile.
reference profile · reported nexus: CN (not nationality)
CL-STA-0043 is a Chinese state-nexus cyber-espionage actor tracked by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which promoted the activity cluster to the named threat actor Phantom Taurus in September 2025, having previously designated it TGR-STA-0043 and linked it to the Operation Diplomatic Specter campaign. The group targets government and telecommunications organizations, including ministries of foreign affairs, embassies and diplomatic missions, across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, with a focus on geopolitical and military intelligence collection. It typically gains access by exploiting internet-facing Internet Information Services (IIS) and Microsoft Exchange servers, then performs reconnaissance and privilege escalation using native Windows tooling. In more recent operations the actor deployed NET-STAR, a fileless .NET malware suite targeting IIS web servers that comprises the IIServerCore backdoor and the AssemblyExecuter V1 and V2 loaders.
Source-reported aliases: Phantom Taurus, TGR-STA-0043. Associations do not prove equivalence.
Target geography
Catalog-listed countries (associations, not attack counts): No country-level metadata
No bound claim-post feed for this label.
Historical casebook
No dated record curated yet; absence does not establish inactivity.
Planned Kinwilder coverage
Tentative editorial review windows, contingent on evidence and review; not promised publication dates or predictions of attacks.
No assigned review window.
References
https://www.securonix.com/blog/securonix-threat-labs-monthly-intelligence-insights-june-2023/
https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/operation-diplomatic-specter/
https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/phantom-taurus/