The Silicon Valley location of Cisco Systems. Cisco’s cyber research arm, Talos, was among the teams targeted in a new spear-phishing campaign. (Photo by David McNew/Newsmakers) Google has discovered a months-long spearphishing campaign targeting security researchers carried by hackers tied to the North Korean government. In a blog released late in the night on Jan. 25, Andrew Weidemann from Googleâs Threat Analysis Group wrote that the campaign spanned multiple companies and researchers who focus on discovering new software vulnerabilities. To do this, the actors first attempted to pose as members of the community, setting up their own research blog as a front, in some cases recycling the work of other researchers and, in at least one case, faking a successful exploit. They also created multiple personas and sockpuppet accounts on social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, Keybase and Discord, where they shared posts, promoted the work of others and interacted with researchers over direct messages.