A China-linked advanced persistent threat actor tracked as UAT-9244 has been targeting telecommunication service providers in South America since 2024, compromising Windows, Linux, and network-edge devices. According to Cisco Talos researchers, the adversary is closely associated with the FamousSparrow and Tropic Trooper hacker groups, but is tracked as a separate activity cluster. This assessment has high confidence and is based on similar tooling, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and victimology observed in attacks attributed to the threat actors. The researchers note that while UAT-9244 shares the same target profile as Salt Typhoon, they could not establish a solid connection between the two activity clusters. New malware targeting telco networks The researchers found that…