SideCopy Broadens India Targeting to Academia With ReverseRAT Spear-Phishing

SideCopy Broadens India Targeting to Academia With ReverseRAT Spear-Phishing Ravie LakshmananSep 22, 2026Malware / Cyber Espionage The threat actor known as SideCopy has been observed using spear-phishing lures to target academic institutions in India, expanding their strategic focus beyond government entities. "SideCopy campaign operations typically initiate through spear-phishing campaigns that leverage the abuse of mshta.exe to execute malicious scripts and circumvent standard security protocols," Trellix researchers Boggavarapu R S S Srinivas Gupta and Ravishankar N C said in a technical report. "This delivery mechanism facilitates the deployment of a remote access trojan (RAT), which serves as the central pillar of their offensive infrastructure." Active since at least 2019, SideCopy (aka TAG-140) is an advanced persistent threat (APT) group that originates…