# China-Linked Threat Actor Integrates Claude Code and DeepSeek-v4-pro into Active Espionage Operations Against Government, Supply-Chain, and Financial Targets

> A suspected China-linked threat actor operating infrastructure tied to the previously documented TencShell/Rshell malware cluster is running an active, multi-region espionage campaign that deliberately divides labor between two commercial AI platforms: Claude Code for agentic tool interaction (bash/terminal execution, session persistence, parallel task management) and DeepSeek-v4-pro for high-level attack reasoning, exploit adaptation, and script generation. Operator logs from June 8-12, 2026 show this AI tooling layered onto SQL injection, GIF-polyglot webshell deployment, custom deserialization RCE against Laravel applications, CORS-based WordPress credential harvesting, and SQLMap-automated database exfiltration across government, supply-chain, and financial-sector targets in Taiwan, Thailand, Afghanistan, the United States, Europe, and Australia.

- **Published:** 2026-07-15T00:00:00Z
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-18T23:40:14.016Z
- **Canonical:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-1354
- **ID:** TL-2026-1354
- **Severity:** HIGH (CVSS 9.8)
- **Category:** APT
- **Status:** ACTIVE
- **Detections:** 9 · **IOCs:** 57 (full data via the Threadlinqs MCP server — Purple tier)
- **CVEs:** CVE-2021-43503

## Description

Between June 8 and June 12, 2026, researchers documented active working environments belonging to a suspected China-linked threat actor that had staged 2,431 files across 80 subdirectories on an exposed Hong Kong-hosted server (112.213.124.132). The directory contained PHP/JSP web shells, database dumps, custom exploit scripts, cloned government login pages, phishing templates, Linux/ARM malware samples, and operator activity logs written in Simplified Chinese.

The operation's defining characteristic is a deliberate AI division of labor: Claude Code was tasked with agentic tool interaction — processing interactive bash environments, executing commands, maintaining session persistence, managing parallel tasks, and constructing phishing pages — while DeepSeek-v4-pro handled higher-order attack reasoning, exploit adaptation, and evasion-logic/script generation. This mirrors the pattern Anthropic disclosed in November 2025, when it disrupted what it assessed with high confidence was the first largely AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign by a Chinese state-sponsored group, in which Claude Code executed an estimated 80-90% of campaign activity (reconnaissance, exploit development, credential harvesting, data categorization, and documentation) with only 4-6 human decision points per operation, at a request rate of multiple per second.

The server's exposed services — SSH (222), a malware download endpoint (1111), DeepAudit (3000), ARL/Attack Reconnaissance Lighthouse (5003), Vshell C2 (8084), and a secondary service (8888) — align with a broader 13-server Hong Kong-hosted infrastructure set (VMISS Inc., MEGA-II IDC, CTG Server Limited, Antbox Networks) sharing matching HTTP headers. This activity and toolset (Vshell/Rshell-family Go implants, Tencent-themed C2 path impersonation) tie the operator to the TencShell cluster Cato CTRL first documented in April-May 2026 against a global manufacturing customer, where the implant used a first-stage dropper with a spoofed User-Agent, a masqueraded .woff web-font resource, in-memory Donut shellcode execution, and Registry Run-key persistence (OneDriveHealthTask) to establish a SOCKS5-capable, screen-capture-enabled backdoor.

Observed victimology in the June 2026 wave spans eight Taiwanese chemical/manufacturing supply-chain firms (SQL injection), Thai government employee databases (GIF-polyglot web shell persistence, SQLMap-automated exfiltration), Afghan citizen-complaint public applications, U.S. public-sector infrastructure including NASA subdomains, the D.C. Council, and Delaware County, and multi-region financial payment-processing platforms in Europe, Australia, and Asia reached via CORS misconfiguration and deserialization RCE against Laravel applications.

## MITRE ATT&CK

- T1595 Active Scanning
- T1583 Acquire Infrastructure
- T1584.001 Compromise Infrastructure: Domains
- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application
- T1566 Phishing
- T1059.003 Windows Command Shell
- T1106 Native API
- T1547.001 Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder
- T1505.003 Server Software Component: Web Shell
- T1098 Account Manipulation
- T1548.002 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control
- T1036.008 Masquerading: Masquerade File Type
- T1620 Reflective Code Loading
- T1027 Obfuscated Files or Information
- T1140 Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information
- T1078 Valid Accounts
- T1055 Process Injection
- T1070.004 Indicator Removal: File Deletion
- T1056 Input Capture
- T1110 Brute Force
- T1082 System Information Discovery
- T1057 Process Discovery
- T1113 Screen Capture
- T1005 Data from Local System
- T1213 Data from Information Repositories
- T1071.001 Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols
- T1571 Non-Standard Port
- T1090.001 Proxy: Internal Proxy
- T1041 Exfiltration Over C2 Channel
- T1590 Gather Victim Network Information
- T1589 Gather Victim Identity Information
- T1592 Gather Victim Host Information
- T1598 Phishing for Information
- T1587 Develop Capabilities
- T1585 Establish Accounts
- T1199 Trusted Relationship
- T1059.004 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Unix Shell
- T1648 Serverless Execution
- T1136 Create Account
- T1552 Unsecured Credentials

## Sources

- [Chinese Hackers Using AI in Government Cyberattacks](https://cybersecuritynews.com/chinese-hackers-ai-attacks/)
- [Suspected Chinese Hackers Use Claude Code and DeepSeek to Breach Government Systems in Three Countries](https://cyberpress.org/ai-powered-hackers-breach-governments/)
- [Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign](https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage)
- [Cato CTRL Threat Research: Suspected China-Linked Threat Actor Targets Global Manufacturer with Undocumented TencShell Malware](https://www.catonetworks.com/blog/cato-ctrl-suspected-china-linked-threat-actor-targets-global-manufacturer/)
- [China-Linked Hackers Deploy New TencShell Malware Against Manufacturer](https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/china-hackers-tencshell-malware/)
- [Anthropic warns state-linked actor abused its AI tool in sophisticated espionage campaign](https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/anthropic-state-actor-ai-tool-espionage/805550/)
- [Cyber Espionage Campaign Exploits Claude Code Tool to Infiltrate Global Targets](https://campustechnology.com/articles/2025/11/24/cyber-espionage-campaign-exploits-claude-code-tool-to-infiltrate-global-targets.aspx)

## Full data

Detection queries (Splunk SPL / Microsoft KQL / Sigma) and IOC values require the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-1354