SideWinder
SideWinder is a highly prolific espionage-focused APT group active since 2012. Known aliases include RattleSnake, Razor Tiger, and T-APT-04. The group has historically targeted military and government entities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, and Nepal, and later expanded operations into the Middle East and Africa. Reported victims and targeting include ministries, diplomatic entities, maritime infrastructure, logistics companies, and entities linked to nuclear energy and nuclear power plants, with observed activity in countries including Bangladesh, Djibouti, Jordan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and diplomatic targets linked to Afghanistan, France, China, India, Indonesia, and Morocco. One report also describes SideWinder as India-linked and conducting secondary targeting of China focused on military modernization, defense technology, and strategic planning. SideWinder commonly uses spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments as its primary infection vector, including DOCX/OOXML documents and ZIP archives containing malicious LNK files. The lures are often crafted for specific targets and have included themes related to nuclear agencies, maritime infrastructure, port authorities, governmental decisions, diplomatic issues, and other generic social-engineering themes. The group has used remote template injection to retrieve attacker-hosted RTF files and exploited CVE-2017-11882 to execute shellcode. Observed execution chains include mshtml RunHTMLApplication, mshta.exe, obfuscated JavaScript, PowerShell, and .NET downloader components. The group has used HTTP for command-and-control communications. Its malware and tooling have been observed collecting files and directory information, staging stolen files in temporary folders for exfiltration, identifying running processes, identifying the current user, collecting system and network configuration information, and collecting network interface details including MAC addresses. SideWinder has also established persistence through Registry Run keys and has disguised malicious files with names such as rekeywiz.exe to resemble legitimate Windows executables. Recent reporting links SideWinder to a multistage infection chain involving a Downloader Module, ModuleInstaller, Backdoor Loader, and the in-memory StealerBot post-exploitation toolkit. StealerBot is described as a private modular .NET espionage implant used exclusively by SideWinder, with observed plugins for keylogging, screenshots, file theft, reverse shell or live console access, browser token theft, RDP credential theft, credential phishing, and UAC bypass. Additional observed tradecraft includes DLL sideloading, AMSI patching, scheduled-task or Run-key persistence, anti-analysis checks, and rapid malware iteration to evade detection.
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Tradecraft
56 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
8 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
3 additional families tracked in Mallory.
Associated vulnerabilities
6 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 6 of them exploited in the wild.
RTF files were specifically crafted by the attacker to exploit CVE-2017-11882, a memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Office software.
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.
The DOCX file exploits CVE-2017-0199 to fetch a remote template from internal-advisory-azerbaijan-russia-diplomatic-crisis[.]defence-np[.]net.
Sidewinder has exploited vulnerabilities to gain execution including... CVE-2020-0674.
1 more CVE tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
Observables
398 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
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 PowerShell execution behavior relevant to this detection.
India-linked espionage group conducting political and military intelligence collection, with secondary targeting of China focused on military modernization, defense technology, and government strategic planning.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the PowerShell P/Invoke process injection API chain detection and related ATT&CK techniques.
Conducting credential-harvesting spearphishing campaigns using a Zimbra-themed phishing kit hosted on Cloudflare Workers, targeting South Asian government, military, telecom, and related accounts. The campaign used stolen diplomatic documents as lures and fake Zimbra login portals to capture credentials.
The version that knows your environment.
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.