Loading threat actor…
SideWinder is an Indian-linked advanced persistent threat group focused on regional cyber espionage, particularly against Pakistan and other South Asian targets. It is also known as Rattlesnake, Razor Tiger, SideWinder APT, APT-C-24, and T-APT-04. The group has targeted government-related and other organizations across South Asia. Its operations use malicious documents and shortcut files, script-based execution, PowerShell and VBScript loaders, and signed Windows proxy execution through mshta. SideWinder performs host reconnaissance, including discovery of running processes, user identity, computer name, operating-system details, installed updates, memory, and processor information. It has also used remote-file retrieval to stage payloads. SideCopy is a distinct operation reported to have adopted SideWinder-like tactics and should not be treated as a confirmed SideWinder subgroup.
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.
52 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
14 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
9 additional families tracked in Mallory.
6 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 6 of them exploited in the wild.
Malicious Word and RTF files exploiting CVE-2017-0199 and CVE-2017-11882 were used as initial infection vectors... The RTF file exploits CVE-2017-11882, a memory corruption vulnerability in the legacy Equation Editor. It embeds shellcode encoded as a hexadecimal character string, which is executed upon opening the document to initiate the next stage of the attack.
Malicious Word and RTF files exploiting CVE-2017-0199 and CVE-2017-11882 were used as initial infection vectors... These vulnerabilities enable remote code execution through malicious Office documents: one by loading external content... The document contains an exploit for CVE-2017-0199, a vulnerability in Microsoft Office that allows remote code execution when a user opens a file that references an external object.
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.
An India-linked threat actor operating from machine MALDEV01 under username WarMachine is exploiting CVE-2026-21509 (Microsoft Office security feature bypass, CVSS 7.8) to target Pakistani government entities.
Sidewinder has exploited vulnerabilities to gain execution including... CVE-2020-0674.
1 more CVE tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
743 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.
Sidewinder is listed in the detection's annotations.
Listed as an associated threat actor for the JavaScript-execution technique.
Listed in the detection annotation metadata.
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.