Iranian Threat Actors Have Modified Their Strategies, Attacks Now More Effective

Since the dawn of the digital age, Iranian hackers have been infamous for their attacks on critical infrastructures, targeting governments, and hacking large corporate networks. The main motive behind these attacks is getting espionage intelligence, steal confidential information, ransomware attacks, and target massive data networks. Since 2019, the hackers have been using developed strategies that are more effective in causing damage to the targets, resulting in better monetary benefits, says the Bloomsbury news.

Attack details

• Earlier this year in April, hacking group APT34 (otherwise knowns as OilRig) launched a modified version of the backdoor named ‘RDAT.’ The backdoor uses the C2 channel, which can hide commands and data under images via attachments. 
• Earlier this year in May, APT34 also added a new tool to its hacking inventory, known as DNSExfiltrator. The tool has allowed hackers to become the first hacking group that uses the DoH (DNS-over-HTTPS) protocol in its attacks. 

Keeping view of these new modifications in the hacking realm, organizations should know that the criminals are evolving and modifying their methods over time. It suggests that hackers have become more powerful and possess a more significant threat to the cybersecurity world.

Other developments 

• In August 2020, the FBI issued a security alert about the hacking group going by the name of ‘Fox Kitten’ attacking potentially weak F5 networks. The hacker’s purpose was to attack private and public U.S. government organizations. 
• In July 2020, making its comeback, threat actor Charming Kitten launched a cyberespionage campaign, using WhatsApp and LinkedIn to imitate Persian speaking journalists. The targets included the U.S. government, Israeli scholars belonging to Tel Aviv and Haifa universities. 
• In June 2020, an amateur hacking group from Iran attacked Asian companies using ‘Dharma’ ransomware. 

According to intelligence reports, the hackers used widely available hacking tools to target companies in China, Russia, Japan, and India. From July 2020, threat actor Fox Kitten is also infamous for giving small corporate networks access on hacking forums. According to experts, it is just trying to generate revenue using other income channels, using systems that lack any intelligence value but provide Iran money.