Analysis Summary

APT MuddyWater - an Iran-based APT - has been operating since at least 2017. This APT group utilizes the common but efficient infection vector, spear-phishing, to perform their tasks. It has mostly targeted countries in the Middle East but also affected countries in Europe and North America. The majority of the group's victims are in the telecoms, government (IT services), and oil industries. This group's activity was formerly related to FIN7, however, it is now regarded to be a separate entity driven by espionage.

MuddyWater's majority of attacks are based on social engineering. It lures its victims into activating macros so that would infect the targeted workstation. Once macros were turned on, the threat actor's code would try to download a trojan from an adversarial payload command and control node.

According to U.S. and U.K. federal agencies, MuddyWater is conducting cyber espionage and other malicious cyber operations as part of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), targeting a range of government and private-sector organizations across sectors—including telecommunications, defense, local government, and oil and natural gas—in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America.

Impact

• Credential Theft
• Exposure to Sensitive Information

Indicators of Compromise

MD5

• af6d4ffcaf5d3dab814d16429cb76754
• fc3f730f2253db14076fa2e3c37aeb1b
• 6e3de0fde579c67fe325936e381008b7

SHA-256

• 55af6a90ac8863f27b3fcaa416a0f1e4ff02fb42aa46a7274c6b76aa000aacc2
• 8fbd374d4659efdc5b5a57ff4168236aeaab6dae4af6b92d99ac28e05f04e5c1
• c152b0c74d704054e2962e2a6198195dc96b4de92f97d8243519e7dcbfca4bd3

SHA-1

• 04224ab9da82d078d5b9e48589c56e9bde707fcf
• e8e16606c34e8d85da2a250d3083800e63a2b901
• 6468d37656d00875c2f49c1998bfdca3d9496a3d

Remediation

• Block all threat indicators at your respective controls.
• Search for indicators of compromise (IOCs) in your environment utilizing your respective security controls.
• Logging - Log your eCommerce environment's network activity and web server activity.
• Passwords - Implement strong passwords.
• Admin Access - limit access to administrative accounts and portals to only relevant personnel and make sure they are not publicly accessible.
• WAF - Set up a Web Application Firewall with rules to block suspicious and malicious requests.
• Patch - Patch and upgrade any platforms and software timely. Prioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities.
• 2FA - Enable two-factor authentication.
• Antivirus - Enable antivirus and anti-malware software and update signature definitions promptly.