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APT33 is an Iranian state-sponsored cyber-espionage threat group, also known as Elfin, Holmium, Peach Sandstorm, Refined Kitten, and G0064. The group has targeted Israeli and Western organizations. Its operations have used spearphishing emails with archive attachments for initial access, followed by VBScript-initiated payload delivery and PowerShell to retrieve additional tools and execute scripts. APT33 has used HTTP-based command-and-control communications, including Base64-encoded traffic, and has employed publicly available credential-recovery tools such as LaZagne to obtain credentials. The group has established persistence through scheduled tasks, including repeatedly executing script-based payloads, and has also used Registry Run keys and Startup-folder artifacts in conjunction with DarkComet-related activity.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
48 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
40 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
35 additional families tracked in Mallory.
5 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 5 of them exploited in the wild.
APT33 has used a publicly available exploit for CVE-2017-0213 to escalate privileges on a local system.
In February 2019, the group attempted to exploit a known vulnerability (CVE-2018-20250) in WinRAR in order to compromise an organization in the chemical sector in Saudi Arabia.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
Peach Sandstorm also attempted to exploit vulnerabilities with a public proof-of-concept (POC) in Zoho ManageEngine or Confluence, to access targets’ environments. CVE-2022-47966 is a remote code execution vulnerability affecting a subset of on-premises Zoho ManageEngine products. Microsoft recommends organizations using vulnerable applications patch this vulnerability as multiple groups have been observed exploiting this vulnerability.
The following analytic detects when su runs from a page-cache-corrupted binary... This activity is significant because it indicates a possible privilege escalation attempt, allowing a user to gain root access... CVE CVE-2026-31431 ... References ... copy-fail-CVE-2026-31431
76 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.
Mentioned only for contextual comparison. The article describes unverified reporting that APT33 may host Tickler C2 infrastructure on fraudulent Azure subscriptions, potentially using compromised educational accounts, and may use password spraying and Registry Run-key persistence.
Listed in the detection's APT annotations.
APT33 is listed in the detection's ATT&CK annotations for T1068, Exploitation for Privilege Escalation.
Listed in the analytic's ATT&CK annotations.
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.