Phantom Taurus is a newly identified APT aligned with Chinese interests that’s quietly compromising government and telecom targets across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, skipping spear-phishing and going straight for exposed infrastructure and crown-jewel servers. In this episode, Mitch Mayne talks with Assaf Dahan, Director of Threat Research, Palo Alto Networks Cortex, about what makes this group different: bespoke, stealthy tooling; an infrastructure-first entry path; and a recent pivot toward databases where visibility is thinner. You’ll hear the 90-second “elevator brief” for CISOs: why basic IT hygiene still blocks most intrusions, how to close visibility gaps with the right telemetry and correlation, and why intel sharing with peers (even competitors) measurably improves defense. If you protect high-value data or run telco/government workloads, this one’s your field guide. What We Cover: 00:00 Setting the stage: welcome to CISO Unscripted 00:22 Meet Assaf Dahan (Palo Alto Networks Cortex) 00:55 Who is “Phantom Taurus”? Targets, regions, tooling 01:18 The four angles we’ll cover in this episode 01:53 What makes Phantom Taurus distinct from other APTs 02:26 Homegrown, stealthy malware built over years 03:05 Targeting focus: MEA/Asia gov & telco, and why it matters 03:58 Infrastructure-first intrusions; going straight for crown jewels 05:06 Not spray-and-pray: selective orgs, broad access once in 05:43 The shift from Exchange/email to databases 06:40 Why the pivot: email is watched; databases less visible 08:20 The elevator brief for CISOs 08:50 Priority #1: IT hygiene beats most intrusions 09:38 Closing the visibility gap & shadow IT 10:12 Tools that correlate across endpoints/servers/cloud (XDR mindset) 11:21 The power of threat-intel sharing across industry 12:23 Sharing with partners & competitors to strengthen defenses 13:09 Wrap-up and takeaways [These are always the same] ✅Subscribe to our channel to stay up-to-date with the latest in cybersecurity and threat intelligence: @PaloAltoNetworksUnit42 ✅Subscribe to the Threat Bulletin https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/#:~:text=Subscribe%20for%20email%20updates%20to%20all%20Unit%2042%20threat%20research Join the conversation on our social media channels: Website: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/unit42 Research Center: https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ Facebook: / lifeatpaloaltonetworks LinkedIn: / unit42 YouTube: / @paloaltonetworksunit42 X: / unit42_intel Thank you for watching. If you found this clip insightful, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our Channel for more valuable content. To stay updated with the latest web application and API security, check out our website at https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/unit42. PALO ALTO NETWORKS Palo Alto Networks enables your team to prevent successful cyberattacks with an automated approach that delivers consistent security across the cloud, network, and mobile. http://paloaltonetworks.com

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