DarkHydrus
Also known as LazyMeerkat, G0079, Obscure Serpens
In July 2018, Unit 42 analyzed a targeted attack using a novel file type against at least one government agency in the Middle East. It was carried out by a previously unpublished threat group we track as DarkHydrus. Based on our telemetry, we were able to uncover additional artifacts leading us to believe this adversary group has been in operation with their current playbook since early 2016. This attack diverged from previous attacks we observed from this group as it involved spear-phishing emails sent to targeted organizations with password protected RAR archive attachments that contained malicious Excel Web Query files (.iqy).
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.
ATT&CK techniques
Recent activity
No posts or advisories have named this actor recently.
References
- https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2018/07/unit42-new-threat-actor-group-darkhydrus-targets-middle-east-government/
- https://mobile.twitter.com/360TIC/status/1083289987339042817
- https://ti.360.net/blog/articles/latest-target-attack-of-darkhydruns-group-against-middle-east-en/
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/unit42-darkhydrus-uses-phishery-harvest-credentials-middle-east/
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/darkhydrus-delivers-new-trojan-that-can-use-google-drive-for-c2-communications/
- https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0079/
- https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/atoms/obscureserpens/
- https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0079
- https://pan-unit42.github.io/playbook_viewer/
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.