How Was Pakistan Targeted Online? Report Reveals Five Years of Hacker Tactics You Must Know!

Pakistan’s core networks have faced a sustained, largely invisible pressure campaign over the past half-decade, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s Cybersecurity Annual Report (2024–25). Drawing on national Telecom Security Operations Center (nTSOC) telemetry, open-source intelligence, and partner data, the report describes an adversary toolkit that has shifted from noisy malware to stealthy, identity-driven techniques, often amplified by AI.

nTSOC, which coordinates real-time alerting and cross-operator incident response, says it ingested more than 10,000 alerts, escalated 1,500 incidents, and blocked over 500 pieces of malicious infrastructure during the period. Activity spiked following the Pehalgam incident in April 2025, when Pakistan recorded 112 major incident claims, 25 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and 104 dark-web threats in weeks. A 24/7 Cyber Control Room run with nTCERT and partner agencies was stood up, marking the first nationwide execution of a cyber crisis protocol.

The data mirrors global trends in which attackers increasingly “live off the land,” using legitimate tools, stolen identities, and cloud misconfigurations to blend into ordinary traffic. According to the report, AI now features directly in operations targeting Pakistan, including voice cloning for telecom fraud, AI-generated phishing at scale, and deepfake impersonations of officials across social media platforms. These campaigns aim to confuse public perception, erode trust in institutions, and exploit weak verification standards.

The upshot is a move away from reactive, signature-based security toward predictive, identity-centric defence, using behaviour analytics, threat-intel fusion, and tighter control of credentials and privileges.

nTSOC’s five-year view of MITRE ATT&CK techniques shows evasion and credential-centric manoeuvres dominating. Obfuscation and script interpreter abuse lead by a wide margin, with phishing continuing as the most common doorway into networks.

Top 10 MITRE ATT&CK techniques observed in Pakistan (five-year totals)

Why this matters: Obfuscation at scale suggests attackers are prioritising bypassing static antivirus and email filters. Command and scripting interpreter abuse (PowerShell, Bash, and cmd) highlights reliance on built-in tools for persistence and lateral movement. The presence of scheduled tasks/jobs underscores a long-game approach designed to survive routine clean-ups.

Top tactics observed (descriptions and frequency)

Source: nTSOC; CTM360.

From these patterns, the report draws several strategic lessons:

• Malware-less intrusions strain traditional antivirus and SIEM rules; behavioural analytics and contextual correlation become decisive.

• Interpreter abuse exposes gaps in endpoint controls and privilege policies, especially in hybrid and remote work settings.

• Email authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) and user awareness remain inconsistent, keeping phishing effective.

• Heavy attackers’ use of obfuscation and deobfuscation points to commoditised post-exploitation frameworks and toolkits.

Targeting was selective, not random. Intelligence from nTSOC and partners shows a clear focus on sectors where disruption, espionage or reputational impact is likeliest.

Sector-specific areas targeted in Pakistan

Source: nTSOC; CTM360.

Government and administration remained a high-value target throughout. Campaigns—largely attributed to Sidewinder and APT-36—relied on spoofed domains, trojanised documents mimicking inter-ministerial memos and procurement notices, and spyware implants on systems within policy-making bodies. Persistent reconnaissance was also detected on government tender and HR portals.

Telecom operators faced multi-vector pressure: DDoS from regional botnets, remote VPN abuse from foreign jurisdictions, and credential-stuffing against reused passwords from earlier leaks. Router-level attacks exploited outdated firmware and exposed admin panels—moves that threaten signalling integrity and raise the risk of national-scale service disruption during geopolitical flashpoints.

Universities and research centres were repeatedly targeted by hacktivist groups and financially motivated actors. Over 30 academic websites were defaced or seeded with web shells, and thousands of university credentials appeared on dark-web marketplaces—an attractive target given decentralised IT governance and constrained cybersecurity budgets.

Judiciary and law-enforcement portals were hit by politically motivated campaigns, including alleged case-record leaks, defacements and the distribution of fake FIRs, court summons and warrants via compromised systems—tactics designed to undermine confidence in public institutions.

Counter Measures

To counter low-footprint tactics, the nTSOC reports a series of measures:

• Real-time detection rules for script-based abuse (e.g., PowerShell invoking encoded commands).

• Dark-web monitoring to correlate leaked credentials with active phishing lures.

• Threat advisories enriched with MITRE-mapped indicators of compromise (IOCs) from national and partner feeds.

This fusion-centre model, according to nTSOC, improved escalation speed, attribution confidence, and the specificity of guidance to operators and public agencies. But the report is blunt: Pakistan must accelerate its shift toward identity-first security, with stricter governance of accounts and privileges, multi-factor authentication by default, and continuous monitoring attuned to user and device behaviour rather than malware signatures alone.

What needs to happen next

The past five years show a clear through-line: attackers succeed by looking legitimate through obfuscating payloads, abusing trusted interpreters, and logging in rather than breaking in. The defence therefore, has to privilege validation and verification at every layer.

• Government: enforce DMARC with reject policies, expand centralised domain management, and fast-track content-verification standards to blunt deepfakes of officials.

• Telecoms: tighten router-firmware lifecycle management, deploy anomaly detection for credential-stuffing, and refresh DDoS playbooks to account for geopolitically timed surges.

• Academia: adopt baseline security controls at the sector level, mandatory MFA, regular phishing-resilience exercises, and clear incident-response channels that do not rely on ad-hoc volunteerism.

• Justice sector: prioritise integrity controls on records systems, out-of-band verification for public documents, and rapid takedown pathways for spoofed portals.

Just as importantly, the broader information ecosystem will need AI-aware safeguards: voice-biometric challenge mechanisms for sensitive transactions, provenance labelling for public-facing media, and rapid public advisories to defuse coordinated disinformation.

Pakistan’s cyber struggle is no longer defined by spectacular malware outbreaks but by persistent, identity-centred incursions that aim to deceive, blend, and persist. The state’s coordination capacity has improved, and the data offers a detailed map of adversary tradecraft. The decisive edge now lies with institutions that detect early, verify identities rigorously, and communicate facts quickly.