Recently, U.S. and allied cybersecurity agencies, including CISA, the NSA, and Canada’s Centre for Cyber Security, issued a series of alerts and analysis reports warning of ongoing malicious activity associated with a sophisticated backdoor malware known as Brickstorm. This malware, attributed to state-sponsored threat actors linked to China, has demonstrated the capability to maintain long-term, stealthy access and to evade detection within targeted networks, posing significant risks to the government and critical infrastructure sectors.

What Is Brickstorm and How Does it Work?

Brickstorm is a stealthy backdoor designed to establish and maintain persistent access once an adversary has gained entry to your environment. The malware has been observed in both VMware vSphere management consoles and Windows environments, where it operates in the background, evading detection and maintaining communication over encrypted channels.

Key technical traits include:

Persistent, self-monitoring design that automatically reinstalls or restarts if disrupted.
Encrypted C2 communication layers, such as HTTPS, WebSockets, TLS, and DNS-over-HTTPS, can allow malicious traffic to blend in with legitimate network traffic.
Capabilities for lateral movement, credential harvesting, and remote system control, enabling attackers to deepen access across enterprise environments.
Targeting of VMware vCenter, ESXi, and Active Directory infrastructure, which allows adversaries to steal credentials and deploy hidden virtual machines.

Government analysts estimate that Brickstorm campaigns have persisted for hundreds of consecutive days, in some cases dating back several years. This indicates not isolated compromises, but long-running, strategic espionage operations against U.S. organizations.

What is a Backdoor?

We’ve used the term malware and backdoor interchangeably here. More specifically, Brickstorm is:

Malware, in that it is, broadly speaking, malicious software that makes its way into a system via one or more vulnerabilities. Brickstorm compromised systems through multiple methods, most commonly by exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in network-facing devices.
Backdoor, in that it provides attackers a way to bypass authentication and authorization requirements in a system, typically through remote access.

Brickstorm is particularly challenging because forensic analysis indicates that it can remain dormant in a system for an average of more than 1 year (393 days) before execution.

Why Brickstorm Matters to Government Compliance

Brickstorm, like other malware on CISA’s radar, has direct implications for government compliance programs. While these present clear risks to protected data, they also expose how simplistic compliance approaches don’t adequately address modern threats. The threat is that it doesn’t immediately reveal itself; it can exist even in otherwise-compliant systems. This is especially true when the root cause of infiltration is a zero-day exploit.

Many federal compliance frameworks are designed to establish baseline controls, yet Brickstorm demonstrates that advanced persistent threats can operate entirely within “compliant” environments.

Advanced Persistent Threats and Compliance Frameworks

Frameworks such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, NIST SP 800-53, NIST SP 800-171, and Zero Trust recommendations emphasize continuous monitoring. Brickstorm highlights the importance of moving beyond static compliance and toward security practices, including:

Continuous threat hunting and behavioral analysis.
Strong network segmentation to prevent lateral movement once initial access is achieved.
Enforcement of least-privilege access controls, particularly for virtualization platforms and identity systems.

Organizations that rely exclusively on signature-based tools or periodic assessments may technically meet compliance requirements while remaining highly vulnerable to state-sponsored actors.

Incident Reporting and Regulatory Obligations

Brickstorm underscores the importance of incident reporting under federal cybersecurity requirements. Unfortunately, because Brickstorm is designed to remain hidden for extended periods, organizations may inadvertently fall out of compliance if reporting thresholds are triggered only after substantial dwell time.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. Instead, it’s up to providers to understand their security and risk, stay ahead of threats, and take steps to address challenges beyond mere compliance.

Supply Chain and Contractor Risk

Compliance programs such as FedRAMP and CMMC require organizations to account for supply chain risk, yet Brickstorm demonstrates how adversaries can exploit trusted platforms to move silently across environments. Why is this? Because it exploits the deep IT supply chains that exist around large enterprises and government agencies, it often slips through seemingly compliant third-party systems.

To maintain credibility, agencies and contractors must ensure that third-party providers implement continuous monitoring, log correlation, and threat intelligence integration rather than relying solely on inherited controls or contractual assurances.

Policy Evolution and Accountability

The Brickstorm campaign is likely to influence the future of federal cybersecurity and compliance policies. This evolution points to real-time analysis and response. Agencies are expected to place greater emphasis on visibility, detection capabilities, and evidence that security controls operate effectively against advanced threats.

This evolution reinforces the growing expectation that compliance is not a one-time certification exercise, but an ongoing demonstration of resilience against real-world adversaries.

What Are Some Practical Compliance and Mitigation Steps

To address Brickstorm-style threats while strengthening compliance posture, government organizations and contractors should focus on:

Integrating government-issued indicators of compromise into SIEMs, EDR platforms, and threat-hunting workflows.
Actively monitoring virtualization management planes and identity infrastructure for anomalous behavior.
Segmenting and hardening high-value assets such as domain controllers, vCenter servers, and administrative interfaces.
Maintaining detailed documentation of detection, response, and remediation activities as audit-ready compliance evidence.
Establishing clear escalation and coordination processes with federal cybersecurity authorities.

These measures help bridge the gap between regulatory compliance and operational defense.

Stay Ahead of Malware with Continuum GRC

For government agencies and regulated organizations, Brickstorm underscores a critical lesson: compliance must be grounded in continuous risk reduction rather than static documentation. Organizations that align compliance efforts with active threat detection, intelligence-driven monitoring, and rapid response will be far better positioned to defend against advanced adversaries while meeting regulatory expectations.

We provide risk management and compliance support for every major regulation and compliance framework on the market, including:

And more. We are the only FedRAMP and StateRAMP-authorized compliance and risk management solution worldwide.

Continuum GRC is a proactive cybersecurity® and the only FedRAMP and StateRAMP-authorized cybersecurity audit platform worldwide. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cybersecurity needs and learn how we can help protect your systems and ensure compliance.

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What Is Brickstorm Malware?