Iranian Cyber Group TA453 Targets Jewish Leader with New AnvilEcho Malware

Iranian state-sponsored threat actors have been observed orchestrating spear-phishing campaigns targeting a prominent Jewish figure starting in late July 2024 with the goal of delivering a new intelligence-gathering tool called AnvilEcho. Enterprise security company Proofpoint is tracking the...

Iranian Hackers Launch Sophisticated Attacks Targeting Israel with PowerLess Backdoor

An Iranian nation-state threat actor has been linked to a new wave of phishing attacks targeting Israel that's designed to deploy an updated version of a Windows backdoor called PowerLess. Cybersecurity firm Check Point is tracking the activity cluster under its mythical creature handle Educated...

Nation-state threat actor Mint Sandstorm refines tradecraft to attack high-value targets

Over the past several months, Microsoft has observed a mature subgroup of Mint Sandstorm, an Iranian nation-state actor previously tracked as PHOSPHORUS, refining its tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs. Specifically, this subset has rapidly weaponized N-day vulnerabilities in common...

Iranian Hackers Target Women Involved in Human Rights and Middle East Politics

Iranian state-sponsored actors are continuing to engage in social engineering campaigns targeting researchers by impersonating a U.S. think tank. "Notably the targets in this instance were all women who are actively involved in political affairs and human rights in the Middle East region,"...

Iranian Hackers Target High-Value Targets in Nuclear Security and Genomic Research

Hackers tied to the Iranian government have been targeting individuals specializing in Middle Eastern affairs, nuclear security, and genome research as part of a new social engineering campaign designed to hunt for sensitive information. Enterprise security firm Proofpoint attributed the targeted...

‘Charming Kitten’ APT Siphons Intel From Mid-East Scholars

An Iran-linked advanced persistent threat APT group has taken a scholarly bent with its latest phishing campaign, which involves lengthy chats with professors, think tank higher-ups and journalists focused on Middle Eastern affairs. The threat actor is Charming Kitten – aka a number of names,...