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Threat Actor

APT33

apt33_elfin · iran · active since 2013

APT33 (Elfin / HOLMIUM / Peach Sandstorm / Refined Kitten / MAGNALLIUM / NewsBeef / Cobalt Trinity / G0064) is an Iranian state-sponsored cyber actor active since at least 2013 and assessed to operate on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

among Iranian APTs, APT33 is distinguished by the maintenance of destructive capability alongside sustained espionage, the SHAPESHIFT wiper delivered by the exclusive DROPSHOT dropper shares code with the Shamoon (Disttrack) wiper used in the 2012 Saudi Aramco attack that destroyed ~35,000 workstations, the 2016-2017 Shamoon 2.0 attacks on Saudi government, and the December 2018 Shamoon 3 attack on Italian oil-services firm Saipem (publicly attributed to APT33 by McAfee); targeting consistently emphasizes aerospace, defense, energy, petrochemical, and government sectors in Saudi Arabia, the United States, the UAE, and South Korea, with sustained operations including the FireEye 2017 initial public disclosure, the Symantec 'Elfin' March 2019 disclosure, the 2023 Microsoft- disclosed industrial-scale Peach Sandstorm password-spray campaign against thousands of organizations, the December 2023 FalseFont defense-industrial-base backdoor, and the August 2024 Tickler multi-stage backdoor abusing attacker-controlled Azure infrastructure.

iran confidence: high 20 aliases MITRE ATT&CK G0064 ↗

Profile

APT33 is an Iranian state-sponsored cyber actor active since at least 2013, assessed by multiple vendors to operate on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Microsoft tracks the cluster as Peach Sandstorm under their current taxonomy; historical names include HOLMIUM (Microsoft), Elfin (Symantec), Refined Kitten (CrowdStrike), MAGNALLIUM (Dragos), and NewsBeef (Kaspersky). Attribution rests on operating-hours alignment with Iranian time zones, embedded Farsi language resources in tooling (notably StoneDrill / DROPSHOT), tooling overlap with other Iranian clusters, and targeting patterns aligned with IRGC strategic priorities. APT33's distinguishing feature among Iranian cyber actors is the maintenance of destructive capability alongside espionage operations , what FireEye characterized as a 'dual-threat' posture. The SHAPESHIFT wiper delivered by the exclusive DROPSHOT dropper shares code with the Shamoon (Disttrack) wiper used in three destructive waves: the August 2012 Saudi Aramco compromise that destroyed ~35,000 workstations (responded to by complete physical hard-drive replacement), the 2016-2017 Shamoon 2.0 attacks on Saudi government agencies, and the December 2018 Shamoon 3 attack on Italian oil-services firm Saipem and other Middle East targets (publicly attributed to APT33 by McAfee). The Shamoon- to-APT33 attribution is debated due to TTP differences.

some analysts treat the wiper operators as a separate but coordinated Iranian cluster. Targeting consistently emphasizes aerospace, defense, energy (especially oil and gas), petrochemical, and government sectors in Saudi Arabia, the United States, the UAE, and South Korea, sectors holding the IP, manufacturing know-how, and strategic intelligence Iran cannot acquire through legitimate channels due to international sanctions. South Korean targeting is believed connected to South Korea's commercial relationships with Saudi Arabia in petrochemicals. Tradecraft has evolved across distinct generations: (Phase I, 2013-2017) spear-phishing with HTML-application attachments, POWERSTATS-era PowerShell tooling, TURNEDUP backdoor, DROPSHOT and SHAPESHIFT wiper deployment.

(Phase II, 2018-2021) POWERTON PowerShell implant with encrypted C2, expanded use of public tools (POSHC2, Empire, Quasar RAT, NjRAT), WinRAR exploitation (CVE-2018-20250), and increased ICS reconnaissance.

(Phase III, 2022-2024) industrial-scale password-spray campaigns against thousands of organizations (Microsoft September 2023), the FalseFont backdoor targeting defense industrial base via fake aerospace careers pages (December 2023), and the Tickler multi- stage backdoor abusing attacker-controlled Azure infrastructure for C2 (Microsoft August 2024). Operational tempo correlates strongly with US-Iran geopolitical tensions, surges following the 2019 oil-tanker attacks, the January 2020 Soleimani killing, the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, and subsequent regional escalation. APT33's persistent presence in aerospace, defense, and energy networks combined with maintained destructive tooling creates an unsettling latent-disruption capability that could be repurposed if Iran's strategic calculus changed.

Aliases

20
apt33holmiumelfinpeach sandstormrefined kittenmagnalliumnewsbeefcobalt trinitytg-2889tg 2889irgcirgc cyberislamic revolutionary guard corpsdropshotstonedrillshamoon3shamoon 3g0064apt 33apt-33

Notable Campaigns

10
2024Tickler Multi-Stage Backdoor (Microsoft August 2024)
2023Peach Sandstorm Password Spray Campaigns (February 2023+)
2023FalseFont Backdoor Against Defense Industrial Base (December 2023)
2020Operational Surge Following Soleimani Killing (January 2020)
2019-2020Microsoft HOLMIUM Tracking, POWERTON and Cloud Targeting (2019-2020)
2019Symantec Elfin Disclosure, Saudi Arabia / US Targeting (March 2019)
2018-2019Industrial Control Systems Targeting (2018-2019)
2017FireEye APT33, Initial Public Disclosure (September 20, 2017)
2017Kaspersky StoneDrill Disclosure (March 2017)
2012-2018Shamoon Wiper Attack Cluster (2012, 2016-2017, 2018)

Attribution & Reporting

Attributed by
FBICISANSAUS Cyber CommandUS Department of TreasuryUK NCSCSaudi National Cybersecurity AuthorityFive EyesMicrosoftMandiantFireEyeGoogle Cloud Threat IntelligenceCrowdStrikeSymantec / BroadcomKasperskyTrend MicroSentinelOneCisco TalosMcAfeeBooz Allen HamiltonRecorded FutureInsikt GroupDragosSecuronixProofpointClearSkyCheck Point Research
Key reporting
reportFireEye: Insights into Iranian Cyber Espionage, APT33 Targets Aerospace and Energy Sectors and Has Ties to Destructive Malware (September 2017)
reportFireEye: OVERRULED, Containing a Potentially Destructive Adversary (December 2018)
reportSymantec: Elfin, Relentless Espionage Group Targets Multiple Organizations in Saudi Arabia and U.S. (March 2019)
reportKaspersky GReAT: From Shamoon to StoneDrill (March 2017)
reportMicrosoft Threat Intelligence: Peach Sandstorm Password Spray Campaigns Enable Intelligence Collection (September 2023)
reportMicrosoft Threat Intelligence: New FalseFont Backdoor Used by Peach Sandstorm (December 2023)
reportMicrosoft Threat Intelligence: Peach Sandstorm Deploys New Custom Tickler Malware in Long-Running Intelligence-Gathering Operations (August 2024)
reportMicrosoft Threat Protection: Inside MTP, Mapping Attack Chains from Cloud to Endpoint (June 2020)
reportRecorded Future / Insikt Group: Iranian Cyber Response to Death of IRGC Head Would Likely Use Reported TTPs and Previous Access (January 2020)
reportDragos: MAGNALLIUM Threat Profile
reportCrowdStrike: Who Is REFINED KITTEN? (2018)
reportBooz Allen Hamilton: APT33 Hunt Report
reportClearSky: The Kittens Are Back in Town 3 (August 2020)
reportMcAfee: Shamoon 3 Attribution (December 2018)
reportCouncil on Foreign Relations: APT 33 Cyber Operations Tracker
reportEuRepoC: APT Profile, APT 33

Operational

State sponsor

Islamic Republic of Iran, assessed by multiple vendors to operate on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Activity timing aligns with Iranian business hours.

tooling overlaps with infrastructure used by other Iranian actors.

Microsoft tracks the cluster as Peach Sandstorm in their weather-system taxonomy.

Motivations
espionage, intelligence_gathering, intellectual_property_theft, aerospace_collection, energy_collection, petrochemical_collection, dual_use_technology_collection, destructive_capability_maintenance, geopolitical_signal_sending, regional_dominance, sanctions_evasion_research
Sectors
Regions

Detection Blind Spots

60 techniques
Across this actor’s 60 mapped techniques, the share covered by each detection layer. Low bars are where you’d be blind if this actor targeted you.
Behavioral / log (Sigma)58/60 · 96%
Analytics (MITRE CAR)34/60 · 56%
Runtime / container (Falco)5/60 · 8%
File / malware (YARA)0/60 · 0%
Network (Suricata/Snort)14/60 · 23%
Vuln scan (Nuclei)0/60 · 0%

Atomic Test Plan

30 techniques
Runnable Atomic Red Team tests covering this actor’s mapped techniques - validate your detections against this specific adversary. Cross-reference the blind spots above. For authorized lab / purple-team use. Open the full builder
Intelligence Graph · click any node to traverse
CVETechnique ActorTool Family
drag to reposition · click any node to traverse · button top-right enlarges
External lookups - second-class, for what we don’t hold ourselves
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