MuddyWater

Origin🇮🇷 Irã

Techniques (MITRE ATT&CK)68

SourceMITRE ATT&CK

State sponsor: Iran (Islamic Republic of)Attribution confidence: 50%Target categories: Government

Targeted regions: Saudi Arabia · Georgia · Turkey · Iraq · Israel · India · United Arab Emirates · Pakistan · United States

Also known as:ATK51Boggy SerpensCOBALT ULSTEREarth VetalaG0069MERCURYMUDDY IONMUDDYCOASTMango SandstormMuddyKrillSeedwormStatic KittenTA450TEMP.Zagros

About the group

MuddyWater is a cyber espionage group assessed to be a subordinate element within Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Since at least 2017, MuddyWater has targeted a range of government and private organizations across sectors, including telecommunications, local government, finance, defense, and oil and natural gas organizations, in the Middle East (specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia), Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. MuddyWater has reused domains dating back to October 2025, and has a preference for NameCheap and Hosterdaddy Private Limited (AS136557). In late 2025 and early 2026, MuddyWater used commercial satellite internet (i.e., Starlink) for command and control (C2) communication.

Attack chain

Plausible scenario built from the group's real techniques, ordered by the phases of an attack. Each step shows how the group typically operates.

Arsenal severity88

Impact: High

Illustrative chain derived from techniques documented in MITRE ATT&CK — it does not represent a specific past attack. Severity summarizes the known arsenal (kill-chain coverage, actively exploited CVEs, techniques).

Techniques (MITRE ATT&CK) 68

How the group operates, mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK matrix and organized by the phases of an attack.

Reconnaissance

Network Topology

Resource development

Domains Web Services Malware Tool

Initial access

Exploit Public-Facing Application Phishing Spearphishing Attachment Spearphishing Link

Execution

Windows Management Instrumentation Scheduled Task PowerShell Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Python JavaScript Exploitation for Client Execution Malicious Link Malicious File Malicious Copy and Paste Component Object Model Dynamic Data Exchange

Persistence

Office Template Macros Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder

Privilege escalation

Bypass User Account Control

Credential access

LSASS Memory LSA Secrets Cached Domain Credentials Credentials In Files Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers

Discovery

System Network Configuration Discovery System Owner/User Discovery System Network Connections Discovery Process Discovery System Information Discovery File and Directory Discovery Domain Account Software Discovery Security Software Discovery

Lateral movement

Exploitation of Remote Services Internal Spearphishing

Collection

Local Data Staging Screen Capture Archive via Utility

Command and control

Web Protocols Proxy External Proxy Bidirectional Communication Multi-Stage Channels Ingress Tool Transfer Standard Encoding Remote Desktop Software Non-Standard Port Symmetric Cryptography

Exfiltration

Exfiltration Over C2 Channel Exfiltration to Cloud Storage

defense-impairment

Disable or Modify Tools

stealth

Steganography Compile After Delivery Command Obfuscation Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information CMSTP Mshta Rundll32 DLL Impersonation

Exploited vulnerabilities 6

CVEs this group is known to exploit, per MITRE ATT&CK. Ordered by real-world severity.

CVE-2020-0688HIGHEPSS 100%KEV MITRE ATT&CK

CVE-2014-7169CRITICALEPSS 100%KEV MITRE ATT&CK

CVE-2017-0199HIGHEPSS 100%KEV MITRE ATT&CK

CVE-2020-1472MEDIUMEPSS 99%KEV MITRE ATT&CK

CVE-2016-6662EPSS 68% MITRE ATT&CK

CVE-2017-0176EPSS 46% MITRE ATT&CK

References

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