China-Linked APT GopherWhisper Abuses Legitimate Services in Government Attacks

Multiple high-impact incidents and trends reported: China-linked APT “GopherWhisper” leverages Go-based backdoors, custom loaders/injectors and abuses legitimate services to target government organizations; a pre‑Stuxnet-era sabotage malware family dubbed “Fast16” targeted high‑precision calculation software and included self‑propagation; a US federal agency’s Cisco firewall was found infected with a persistent ‘Firestarter’ backdoor providing remote access; a Bitwarden npm package was compromised in a supply‑chain attack tied to Checkmarx/TeamPCP and the Shai‑Hulud worm. Vendors patched high‑