Trend Micro researchers have discovered that the attackers behind Pawn Storm, the long-running cyber-espionage campaign, are using an Adobe Flash zero-day exploit code for their attacks. The particular affected vulnerability is still unpatched, making Flash users vulnerable to attacks. In this most recent campaign of Pawn Storm, several Ministries of Foreign Affairs received spear phishing e-mails. These contain links to sites that supposedly contain information about current events, but in reality, these URLs hosted the exploit. In this wave of attacks, the emails were about the following topics:

"Suicide car bomb targets NATO troop convoy Kabul"

"Syrian troops make gains as Putin defends air strikes"

"Israel launches airstrikes on targets in Gaza"

"Russia warns of response to reported US nuke buildup in Turkey, Europe"

"US military reports 75 US-trained rebels return Syria"

It's worth noting that the URLs hosting the new Flash zero-day exploit are similar to the URLs seen in attacks that targeted North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members and the White House in April this year.

The Flash zero-day affects at least Adobe Flash Player versions 19.0.0.185 and 19.0.0.207.