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TANKSHELL is a utility associated with the Iranian state-sponsored threat cluster UNC1860, which is assessed to be linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and to have targeted government and telecommunications networks across the Middle East. TANKSHELL is part of a broader UNC1860 toolset built for stealthy, persistent access and operational support within compromised environments. It has been observed using the XORO rolling-encryption module, a recurring development component shared across multiple UNC1860 utilities, indicating common tooling lineage with other malware in the cluster such as TEMPLEPLAY and TUNNELBOI.
Available reporting does not provide enough high-confidence detail to classify TANKSHELL more specifically by malware family or to attribute a complete standalone feature set. Its documented significance is primarily as an UNC1860-associated utility within an ecosystem that includes passive backdoors, controllers, loaders, web shells, and tunneling components used to establish, maintain, and operationalize access in victim networks. UNC1860 commonly gains entry by exploiting vulnerable internet-facing servers and then deploys follow-on tooling for persistence, remote access enablement, and defense evasion. Within that context, TANKSHELL appears to be one of the supporting utilities used alongside other UNC1860 malware during intrusion operations.
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1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
For example, XORO, a rolling encryption module (MD5: 57cd8e220465aa8030755d4009d0117c), is used in several utilities such as TANKSHELL and TEMPLEPLAY.
1 distinct technique documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
1 indicator attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
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Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.