Threats Feed

The Iranian cyber espionage group UNC3313, also known as TEMP.Zagros and MuddyWater, has been identified as the perpetrator of a series of cyber attacks on Middle Eastern government and technology entities. The group used new targeted malware, GRAMDOOR and STARWHALE, to exploit vulnerabilities and gain unauthorized access. UNC3313 also utilized publicly available remote access software and modified open-source offensive security tools for lateral movement within the targeted systems. The group's activities suggest a strong focus on geopolitical targets and the telecommunications sector in the Middle East. The use of the Telegram API for command and control allows for malicious traffic to blend in with legitimate user behavior, indicating the group's efforts to evade detection.

The Iranian government-sponsored APT group, MuddyWater, has been conducting cyber operations against government and private sector organizations across Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. The targeted sectors include telecommunications, defense, local government, oil and natural gas. MuddyWater's campaigns involve the exploitation of public vulnerabilities, usage of open-source tools, spear-phishing, and the deployment of multiple types of malware such as PowGoop, Small Sieve, Canopy/Starwhale, Mori, and POWERSTATS. The group has been active since 2018 and is known for maintaining persistence on victim networks and obfuscating PowerShell scripts to hide C2 functions.

Iranian APT group Phosphorus has developed a new PowerShell backdoor, dubbed PowerLess Backdoor, for espionage purposes. Cybereason researchers discovered the backdoor while investigating the group's exploitation of the ProxyShell vulnerability. The backdoor allows for downloading additional payloads, evasive PowerShell execution, and encrypted communication with the command and control server. Connections were also found between the Phosphorus group and the Memento Ransomware.

The MuddyWater threat group continues to evolve its tactics and techniques. The group exploits publicly available offensive security tools and has been refining its custom toolset to avoid detection. It utilizes the PowGoop malware family, tunneling tools, and targets Exchange servers in high-profile organizations, particularly governmental entities and telecommunication companies in the Middle East. The group has also been observed exploiting CVE-2020-0688 and using Ruler for its malicious activities.

APT35 has started widespread scanning and attempts to leverage the Log4j flaw in publicly facing systems only four days after the vulnerability was disclosed. The group used a modular PowerShell-based framework dubbed CharmPower for persistence, information gathering, and command execution.

An espionage campaign tentatively linked to the Iranian-backed Seedworm group has been using compromised organizations as stepping stones to additional victims or targets that may have been compromised solely to perform supply-chain-type attacks on other organizations. The attackers primarily used legitimate tools, publicly available malware, and living-off-the-land tactics, with a significant interest in Exchange Servers. While the ultimate end goal remains unknown, the focus on telecom operators suggests the attackers are gathering intelligence on the sector, potentially pivoting into communications surveillance.

Some Iranian government-sponsored APT groups have exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange servers and Fortinet devices since March 2021. These actors broadly targeted critical infrastructure sectors in the US, including Transportation and Healthcare and Public Health, as well as Australian organizations. The APT group focused more on exploiting known vulnerabilities rather than specific sectors, using the gained access for ransomware deployment, data exfiltration, and extortion. Several tactics, techniques, and tools were utilized, including creating new user accounts and modifying Task Scheduler.

APT35 has used multiple tactics to compromise high-value targets. The group has used hijacked websites, such as one affiliated with a UK university, for credential phishing attacks. They have also uploaded spyware disguised as VPN software to app stores and impersonated conference officials to conduct phishing campaigns. Additionally, APT35 has utilized link shorteners and click trackers embedded within PDF files and abused services like Google Drive, App Scripts, and Sites pages. The group has adopted a novel approach by leveraging Telegram for real-time operator notifications, enabling them to monitor visitor information to their phishing sites.

Iranian-state aligned actor TA453 has been covertly targeting individuals of intelligence interest to the Iranian government by masquerading as British scholars from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). The threat actor, targeted Middle Eastern experts, senior professors, and journalists. TA453 compromised a legitimate academic website to deliver personalized credential harvesting pages.

In late 2020, the Iranian-nexus threat actor TA453 launched a credential phishing campaign called BadBlood, targeting senior medical professionals in genetic, neurology, and oncology research in the United States and Israel. The campaign deviates from the group's usual activity and may indicate a shift in TA453's targeting priorities. The attackers used spearphishing emails with links to a fake OneDrive site to harvest user credentials, potentially to exfiltrate email contents or use compromised accounts for further phishing campaigns.

In December 2021, PHOSPHORUS exploited the Microsoft Exchange ProxyShell vulnerabilities, using web shells to gain initial access and execute code. The attack closely resembled their previous attacks and due to previous reports and OSINT research, DFIR believes with medium to high confidence that this intrusion would have ended in ransomware. The attackers established persistence through scheduled tasks and a newly created account, and after enumerating the environment, disabled LSA protection and dumped LSASS process memory. The entire attack was likely scripted out, as evidenced by the user agent strings and the similarity between commands.

The MuddyWater threat group, through an intrusion set named Earth Vetala, targeted various organizations in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group used spear-phishing emails to distribute malicious packages, predominantly aiming at Government Agencies, Academia, and the Tourism sector. MuddyWater deployed post-exploitation tools to dump passwords and establish a persistent presence within targeted systems. They used multiple C&C servers to execute obfuscated PowerShell scripts and were persistent in attempting multiple techniques to establish connectivity despite repeated failures.

The cyberespionage group, Static Kitten, launched a cyber attack primarily targeting the government sectors of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. Using geopolitical lures and masquerading as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of Kuwait, the attackers aimed to install a remote management tool called ScreenConnect on victims' devices. The campaign involved phishing emails, URL masquerading, and delivering ZIP files that purport to contain relevant documents but instead initiate the ScreenConnect installation process.

During the 2021 Christmas holidays, Iranian state-backed hackers Charming Kitten initiated a targeted phishing campaign against individuals, focusing on personal and business emails. The group used public-facing applications, such as Google services, to redirect victims through a chain of legitimate services, helping bypass security layers in email services and obfuscate their operations. They employed various fake domains and developed custom phishing pages to target a range of online services, collecting sensitive data and emails from victims.

The Iranian threat actor Phosphorus targeted potential attendees of the Munich Security Conference and the Think 20 (T20) Summit in Saudi Arabia through a series of cyberattacks. The attackers sent spoofed email invitations to former government officials, policy experts, academics, and leaders from non-governmental organizations. Their goal was intelligence collection, and they successfully compromised several high-profile individuals' accounts.

The espionage group Seedworm (aka MuddyWater) has been actively targeting government organizations, telecoms, and computer services sectors across the Middle East, including Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Afghanistan, Israel, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Seedworm's recent activities, linked to the PowGoop tool, involve PowerShell usage, credential dumping, and DLL side-loading. The group establishes connections to its infrastructure using Secure Sockets Funneling and Chisel while deploying PowGoop through remote execution tools. The connection between PowGoop and Seedworm remains tentative, suggesting potential retooling.

Iranian APT33 has been detected running a phishing campaign that employs fake job scams to lure victims. The campaign aims for credential theft, information theft, and unauthorized remote access. While the targeted sectors and countries are not specified, the indicators of compromise involve domain names like "www[.]global-careers[.]org" and filenames such as "JobDescription.zip" and "JobDescription.vbe".

APT33 has been observed deploying sophisticated malware using a C2 domain "backupaccount[.]net." The malware is written in PowerShell and uses HTTP for C2 communications. It's loaded with 14 different functions including encryption and decryption capabilities for secure data exchange. The malware has a comprehensive command structure to interact with compromised systems, supporting a range of commands such as file upload/download, setting persistence mechanisms via WMI or Registry, and even taking screenshots. It also has an "active" and "silent" mode for C2 check-ins. The targeted countries and sectors were not specified in the report.

The Iranian APT group, MuddyWater, targeted Kurdish political groups and Turkish defense sector organizations using emails with malicious Word documents. The documents contained embedded Macros that used PowerShell to execute various commands and modify registry values for persistence. The Macro also used obfuscation techniques, encoding data within image files and a document. The attackers tested their malicious documents against various anti-virus engines, uploading files from Germany and Iraq. This campaign signifies an evolution in MuddyWater's attack methods, with malware extraction now performed locally rather than via a C2 server.

Seedworm has compromised more than 130 victims across 30 organizations since September 2018. The group targets primarily the Middle East, Europe, and North America, focusing on government agencies, oil and gas companies, NGOs, telecoms, and IT firms. Seedworm uses tools such as Powermud, Powemuddy, and PowerShell scripts and has updated its tactics to avoid detection. The main targeted sectors include telecommunications, IT services, oil and gas, universities, and embassies. The group is known for its speed and agility in obtaining actionable intelligence from targeted organizations.

The MuddyWater threat group has been launching two-stage spear-phishing attacks on targets in Lebanon and Oman. The first stage involves sending macro-embedded documents posing as resumes or official letters. These documents contain obfuscated code hosted on compromised domains. In the second stage, obfuscated source code from these domains is executed to propagate MuddyWater's main PowerShell backdoor, POWERSTATS. This campaign marks a shift from single-stage to two-stage attacks, allowing for stealthier delivery of the payload.

The MuddyWater group has expanded its cyber operations, focusing mainly on government bodies, military entities, telecommunication companies, and educational institutions. The new spear-phishing docs used by MuddyWater rely on social engineering to persuade users to enable macros, thereby initiating malware extraction and execution. The malware is designed for extensive system reconnaissance, and the command-and-control communication structure allows the threat actors to accept or reject victims based on various criteria.

A potential MuddyWater campaign has been discovered using a new sample found in May 2018. The campaign involves a malicious Microsoft Word document with an embedded macro capable of executing PowerShell scripts, leading to a PRB-Backdoor payload. Notably, the lure document's subject matter has changed from government or telecommunications-related documents to rewards or promotions, suggesting that targets may no longer be limited to specific industries or organizations. The backdoor communicates with a C&C server to perform various functions, such as gathering system information, keylogging, and capturing screenshots.