Description

According to Group-IB cybersecurity company, a malicious Iranian threat actor MuddyWater carries on the traditional strategy of using legitimate remote administration tools to control targeted systems. According to Group-IB researchers, the adversary used SimpleHelp remote support software in June 2022, instead of previous software such as ScreenConnect, RemoteUtilities, or Syncro. It is believed that MuddyWater is an element of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), active since at least 2017. In addition to Turkey and Pakistan, the top targets include the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United States, and Azerbaijan. Nikita Rostovtsev, the senior threat analyst at Group-IB, said MuddyWater uses SimpleHelp to ensure persistence on victim devices. Researchers say that, the security of SimpleHelp has not been compromised, and it is being used as intended, however, analysts believe that the threat actors were able to download the tool from the official website and utilize it in their attacks. Currently, it is unclear exactly how the SimpleHelp samples are distributed, although the group has been known to drop spear-phishing emails from already compromised corporate mailboxes, containing malicious links. In January 2023, Slovak cybersecurity company ESET confirmed Group-IB's findings by pointing out that MuddyWater's attacks in Egypt and Saudi Arabia involved the use of SimpleHelp's reverse tunneling tool Ligolo and a credential harvester called MKL64. Further, the Singapore-based company identified unknown infrastructure operated by the group, as well as a PowerShell script capable of receiving commands from a remote server and returning the results. As part of its disclosure, Microsoft detailed the group's method of carrying out destructive attacks on hybrid environments under the guise of a ransomware attack.