Cotton Sandstorm
Also known as Emennet Pasargad, Holy Souls, MARNANBRIDGE, NEPTUNIUM, HAYWIRE KITTEN
Cotton Sandstorm is an Iranian threat actor involved in hack-and-leak operations. They have targeted various organizations, including the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, where they obtained and leaked personal information of over 200,000 customers. The group has been linked to the Iranian government and has been sanctioned by the US Treasury
Targets: Government, Finance, High-Tech, Telecoms, NGOs, Civil Society, Rail, Energy, United States, Israel, Middle East, Europe
CVEs in recent coverage
No CVEs named alongside this actor in the last 90 days.
Recent victims
No leak-site posts on record for this group.
Recent activity
No posts or advisories have named this actor recently.
References
- https://blog.sekoia.io/iran-cyber-threat-overview/
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/02/03/dtac-charlie-hebdo-hack-iran-neptunium/
- https://www.ic3.gov/Media/News/2022/220126.pdf
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/security-insider/threat-briefs/iran-response-for-charlie-hebdo-attacks/
- https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/tool-of-first-resort-israel-hamas-war-cyber.pdf
From the MISP threat-actor galaxy, MITRE ATT&CK and RansomLook (CC BY 4.0). Activity is any post or advisory Watch Floor collected that names the actor or one of its aliases.