Trend Micro found that APT33 has been spotted using more than a dozen obfuscated botnets to carry out narrowly targeted attacks against government and academic targets in the Middle East, the U.S. and Asia. The goal appears to be to establish a backdoor: The malware is rather basic and has limited capabilities that include downloading and running additional malware, the researchers said. Trend Micro has seen two separate campaigns taking aim at a private American company that offers services related to national security.
Source: https://threatpost.com/apt33-mounts-targeted-botnet-attacks-us/150248/