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Metador is a previously unreported advanced espionage threat actor known for targeting telecommunications providers, internet service providers, and universities in the Middle East and Africa. The actor has demonstrated strong operational security, including victim-specific infrastructure segmentation, rapid adaptation to defensive tooling, and attack chains designed to bypass native security controls while deploying malware directly into memory. Attribution remains unresolved. Available evidence supports an espionage-oriented mission, while some tradecraft and development artifacts have led researchers to consider the possibility of a contractor or mercenary-style operation rather than a clearly attributable state unit. Metador is associated with at least two Windows malware platforms, metaMain and Mafalda, and there are indications of an additional Linux implant as well as use of Cryshell for indirect command-and-control relaying. metaMain is designed for long-term access and supports capabilities including keylogging, mouse-event logging, screenshot capture, file transfer, and arbitrary shellcode execution. Mafalda is a feature-rich interactive backdoor under active development, with more than 60 supported commands and extensive anti-analysis protections in later variants. Mafalda also supports collection from Linux systems through a separate implant path. Observed intrusion chains show Metador using Windows Management Instrumentation event subscription for persistence and abusing the Microsoft Console Debugger as an unusual living-off-the-land component to decrypt, inject, and launch malware in memory. In documented cases, persistence triggered shortly after system boot, after which the debugger executed scripts that injected shellcode into a legitimate process and loaded encrypted components. Metador has also used Windows command shell execution, downloaded tools and malware onto compromised systems, communicated over HTTP for command and control, encrypted payloads, and rapidly deleted deployment artifacts after successful malware installation to reduce forensic visibility. Metador appears to be a long-running, well-resourced actor focused on maintaining durable, redundant access to victim environments for intelligence collection. Artifacts suggest multiple developers or operators, including English- and Spanish-language traces, but no high-confidence country attribution is currently available.
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37 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
3 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
2 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Listed as a threat actor associated with Windows Command Shell execution behavior relevant to this detection.
Listed as an associated threat actor in the detection annotations for exploitation-related activity.
Referenced as a threat actor associated with the file deletion / defense evasion technique of clearing unallocated sectors using cipher.exe /w, a behavior noted as used by ransomware to hinder forensic recovery.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the detection for post-exploitation webserver downloads from file-sharing or public hosting services.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.