MuddyWater is a cyber espionage group assessed to be a subordinate element within Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).[1] Since at least 2017, MuddyWater has targeted a range of government and private organizations across sectors, including telecommunications, local government, finance, defense, and oil and natural gas organizations, in the Middle East (specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia), Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. MuddyWater has reused domains dating back to October 2025, and has a preference for NameCheap and Hosterdaddy Private Limited (AS136557). In late 2025 and early 2026, MuddyWater used commercial satellite internet (i.e., Starlink) for command and control (C2) communication. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Earth Vetala | |
| MERCURY | |
| Static Kitten | |
| Seedworm | |
| TEMP.Zagros | |
| Mango Sandstorm | |
| TA450 | |
| MuddyKrill |
| Domain | ID | Name | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1548 | .002 | Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control |
MuddyWater uses various techniques to bypass UAC.[6][11] |
| Enterprise | T1087 | .002 | Account Discovery: Domain Account |
MuddyWater has used |
| Enterprise | T1583 | .001 | Acquire Infrastructure: Domains |
MuddyWater has established domains, some of which appeared to spoof legitimate domains for use in operations.[11] |
| .006 | Acquire Infrastructure: Web Services |
MuddyWater has used file sharing services including OneHub, Sync, and TeraBox to distribute tools.[15][14][18][12] |
||
| Enterprise | T1071 | .001 | Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols |
MuddyWater has used HTTP for C2 communications.[7][14] |
| Enterprise | T1560 | .001 | Archive Collected Data: Archive via Utility |
MuddyWater has used the native Windows cabinet creation tool, makecab.exe, likely to compress stolen data to be uploaded.[5] |
| Enterprise | T1547 | .001 | Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder |
MuddyWater has added Registry Run key |
| Enterprise | T1059 | .001 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell |
MuddyWater has used PowerShell for execution.[16][22][20][5][6][21][8][14][9][10][11] |
| .003 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell |
MuddyWater has used a custom tool for creating reverse shells.[5] |
||
| .005 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic |
MuddyWater has used VBScript files to execute its POWERSTATS payload, as well as macros.[16][22][20][5][6][7][8][14][10] |
||
| .006 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Python |
MuddyWater has developed tools in Python including Out1.[14] |
||
| .007 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript |
MuddyWater has used JavaScript files to execute its POWERSTATS payload.[6][16][9] |
||
| Enterprise | T1555 | Credentials from Password Stores |
MuddyWater has performed credential dumping with LaZagne and other tools, including by dumping passwords saved in victim email.[4][5][14] |
|
| .003 | Credentials from Web Browsers |
MuddyWater has run tools including Browser64 to steal passwords saved in victim web browsers.[5][14] |
||
| Enterprise | T1132 | .001 | Data Encoding: Standard Encoding |
MuddyWater has used tools to encode C2 communications including Base64 encoding.[7][14] |
| Enterprise | T1074 | .001 | Data Staged: Local Data Staging |
MuddyWater has stored a decoy PDF file within a victim's |
| Enterprise | T1140 | Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information |
MuddyWater has decoded base64-encoded PowerShell, JavaScript, and VBScript.[16][22][6][10] |
|
| Enterprise | T1685 | Disable or Modify Tools |
MuddyWater can disable the system's local proxy settings.[14] |
|
| Enterprise | T1573 | .001 | Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography |
MuddyWater has used AES to encrypt C2 responses.[10] |
| Enterprise | T1041 | Exfiltration Over C2 Channel |
MuddyWater has used C2 infrastructure to receive exfiltrated data.[8] |
|
| Enterprise | T1567 | .002 | Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage |
MuddyWater has attempted to exfiltrate data to Wasabi, a cloud storage service, using Rclone.[23] |
| Enterprise | T1190 | Exploit Public-Facing Application |
MuddyWater has exploited the Microsoft Exchange memory corruption vulnerability (CVE-2020-0688).[9] |
|
| Enterprise | T1203 | Exploitation for Client Execution |
MuddyWater has exploited the Office vulnerability CVE-2017-0199 for execution.[7] |
|
| Enterprise | T1210 | Exploitation of Remote Services |
MuddyWater has exploited the Microsoft Netlogon vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472).[9] |
|
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery |
MuddyWater has used malware that checked if the ProgramData folder had folders or files with the keywords "Kasper," "Panda," or "ESET."[20] |
|
| Enterprise | T1590 | .004 | Gather Victim Network Information: Network Topology |
MuddyWater has mapped target networks; access to this information and more is then shared/sold to other Iran threat actors.[24] |
| Enterprise | T1574 | .001 | Hijack Execution Flow: DLL |
MuddyWater maintains persistence on victim networks through side-loading dlls to trick legitimate programs into running malware.[9] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer |
MuddyWater has used malware that can upload additional files to the victim’s machine.[20][6][8][14] MuddyWater has used PowerShell commands to install remote management and monitoring (RMM) software on the victim’s machine to conduct espionage and to exfiltrate data.[11] |
|
| Enterprise | T1559 | .001 | Inter-Process Communication: Component Object Model |
MuddyWater has used malware that has the capability to execute malicious code via COM, DCOM, and Outlook.[20][7][9] |
| .002 | Inter-Process Communication: Dynamic Data Exchange |
MuddyWater has used malware that can execute PowerShell scripts via DDE.[20] |
||
| Enterprise | T1534 | Internal Spearphishing |
MuddyWater has used compromised mailboxes within target organizations to send spearphishing emails.[2] |
|
| Enterprise | T1036 | .005 | Masquerading: Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location |
MuddyWater has disguised malicious executables and used filenames and Registry key names associated with Windows Defender.[16][21][15] |
| Enterprise | T1104 | Multi-Stage Channels |
MuddyWater has used one C2 to obtain enumeration scripts and monitor web logs, but a different C2 to send data back.[21] |
|
| Enterprise | T1571 | Non-Standard Port |
MuddyWater has used ports 8043 and 8848 for botnet C2 communication.[24] |
|
| Enterprise | T1027 | .003 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Steganography |
MuddyWater has stored obfuscated JavaScript code in an image file named temp.jpg.[6] |
| .004 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Compile After Delivery |
MuddyWater has used the .NET csc.exe tool to compile executables from downloaded C# code.[6] |
||
| .010 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Command Obfuscation |
MuddyWater has used Daniel Bohannon’s Invoke-Obfuscation framework and obfuscated PowerShell scripts.[4][25] The group has also used other obfuscation methods, including Base64 obfuscation of VBScripts and PowerShell commands.[4][16][20][21][7][14][10] |
||
| Enterprise | T1588 | .001 | Obtain Capabilities: Malware |
MuddyWater has used publicly available malware for operations, likely to blend in with other cybercriminals.[3] |
| .002 | Obtain Capabilities: Tool |
MuddyWater has used legitimate tools ConnectWise, RemoteUtilities, and SimpleHelp to gain access to the target environment.[15][26][12][11] |
||
| Enterprise | T1137 | .001 | Office Application Startup: Office Template Macros |
MuddyWater has used a Word Template, Normal.dotm, for persistence.[8] |
| Enterprise | T1003 | .001 | OS Credential Dumping: LSASS Memory |
MuddyWater has performed credential dumping with Mimikatz and procdump64.exe.[4][5][14] |
| .004 | OS Credential Dumping: LSA Secrets |
MuddyWater has performed credential dumping with LaZagne.[4][5] |
||
| .005 | OS Credential Dumping: Cached Domain Credentials |
MuddyWater has performed credential dumping with LaZagne.[4][5] |
||
| Enterprise | T1566 | Phishing |
MuddyWater has sent phishing emails to targets from the email address support@microsoftonlines[.]com.[11] |
|
| .001 | Spearphishing Attachment |
MuddyWater has compromised third parties and used compromised accounts to send spearphishing emails with targeted attachments to recipients.[4][16][20][7][15][14][9][18][12][23] MuddyWater has also sent spearphishing emails with the attachment Cybersecurity.doc, which served as the primarily payload for the next stage.[27] |
||
| .002 | Spearphishing Link |
MuddyWater has sent targeted spearphishing e-mails with malicious links.[15][14][18] |
||
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery |
MuddyWater has used malware to obtain a list of running processes on the system.[20][7] |
|
| Enterprise | T1090 | Proxy |
MuddyWater has used NordVPN to proxy phishing emails, making them appear to originate from France.[2] |
|
| .002 | External Proxy |
MuddyWater has controlled POWERSTATS from behind a proxy network to obfuscate the C2 location.[5] MuddyWater has used a series of compromised websites that victims connected to randomly to relay information to command and control (C2).[8][14] MuddyWater has also used go-socks5 variants to bypass firewalls and Network Address Translation (NAT), to communicate with a hardcoded C2 server, and to exfiltrate data.[12] |
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| Enterprise | T1219 | .002 | Remote Access Tools: Remote Desktop Software |
MuddyWater has leveraged RMM solutions including ScreenConnect, AteraAgent, SimpleHelp, Action1, Level, and PDQ to facilitate follow-on actions within compromised hosts to include data exfiltration.[14][15][18][26][2][11][24] |
| Enterprise | T1053 | .005 | Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task |
MuddyWater has used scheduled tasks to establish persistence.[8] |
| Enterprise | T1113 | Screen Capture |
MuddyWater has used malware that can capture screenshots of the victim’s machine.[20] |
|
| Enterprise | T1684 | .001 | Social Engineering: Impersonation |
MuddyWater has used support@microsoftonlines[.]com to send phishing emails that masqueraded as security updates from Microsoft.[11] MuddyWater has also impersonated TMCell (Altyn Asyr CJSC), the primary mobile operator in Turkmenistan, sending phishing emails with the email domain info@tmcell.[27] |
| Enterprise | T1518 | Software Discovery |
MuddyWater has used a PowerShell backdoor to check for Skype connectivity on the target machine.[14] |
|
| .001 | Security Software Discovery |
MuddyWater has used malware to check running processes against a hard-coded list of security tools often used by malware researchers.[20] |
||
| Enterprise | T1218 | .003 | System Binary Proxy Execution: CMSTP |
MuddyWater has used CMSTP.exe and a malicious INF to execute its POWERSTATS payload.[16] |
| .005 | System Binary Proxy Execution: Mshta |
MuddyWater has used mshta.exe to execute its POWERSTATS payload and to pass a PowerShell one-liner for execution.[16][20] |
||
| .011 | System Binary Proxy Execution: Rundll32 |
MuddyWater has used malware that leveraged rundll32.exe in a Registry Run key to execute a .dll.[20] |
||
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery |
MuddyWater has used malware that can collect the victim’s OS version and machine name.[20][21][8][14][10] |
|
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery |
MuddyWater has used malware to collect the victim’s IP address and domain name.[20] |
|
| Enterprise | T1049 | System Network Connections Discovery |
MuddyWater has used a PowerShell backdoor to check for Skype connections on the target machine.[14] |
|
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery |
MuddyWater has used malware that can collect the victim’s username.[20][14] |
|
| Enterprise | T1552 | .001 | Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files |
MuddyWater has run a tool that steals passwords saved in victim email.[5] |
| Enterprise | T1204 | .001 | User Execution: Malicious Link |
MuddyWater has distributed URLs in phishing e-mails that link to lure documents.[15][14][18] |
| .002 | User Execution: Malicious File |
MuddyWater has attempted to get users to open malicious PDF attachment and to enable macros and launch malicious Microsoft Word documents delivered via spearphishing emails.[4][16][20][21][7][8][15][14][9][10][18] Additionally, MuddyWater has used a Word document with a malicious Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro; when enabled, the CertificationKit.ini payload is constructed and executed.[27] |
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| .004 | User Execution: Malicious Copy and Paste |
MuddyWater has leveraged ClickFix type tactics enticing victims to copy and paste malicious PowerShell code.[11] |
||
| Enterprise | T1102 | .002 | Web Service: Bidirectional Communication |
MuddyWater has used web services including OneHub to distribute remote access tools.[15] |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation |
MuddyWater has used malware that leveraged WMI for execution and querying host information.[20][6][21][9] |
|