Paperbug is a name given to a set of intrusion attacks which was given by Swiss cybersecurity company PRODAFT. This attack has been attributed to a threat actor known as Nomadic Octopus, also known as DustSquad. The Russian-speaking cyber-espionage group has been said to be behind the new surveillance campaign which has targeted government officials, public service infrastructure and telecom services in Tajikistan. Devices ranging from end-user computers to Operational Technology (OT) devices.
Although the primary motive behind the attacks are not known, it is suspected that is is a politically-driven attack caused by the Opposition forces within the country or an espionage mission carried out by China or Russia.
The little-known threat actor group Nomadic Octopus came into the limelight in October 2018 when Kaspersky and ESET released details about a set of phishing attacks conducted by the actor against several countries in Central Asia. The group is said to have been active since 2014.