HomeLand Justice was a disruptive cyber campaign conducted by Iranian state-affiliated actors against Albanian government networks in July and September 2022. The activity combined ransomware, wiper malware, and data leak operations. Initial access for HomeLand Justice was established as early as May 2021, and threat actors moved laterally, exfiltrated sensitive information, and maintained persistence for approximately 14 months prior to the destructive phase of the operation. Responsibility was claimed by the "HomeLand Justice" front, which framed the campaign as retaliation against the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group with a presence in Albania. Multiple Iran-nexus groups are assessed to have participated in the campaign, including HEXANE who probed victim infrastructure.[1][2][3] A second wave of attacks was launched in September 2022 using similar tactics following public attribution of the previous activity to Iran and the severing of diplomatic ties between Iran and Albania.[3]
25
Techniques70th pct
14
TacticsTop 4%
7
Tools & malwareTop 11%
1
Threat groupunranked
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors executed the Advanced Port Scanner tool on compromised systems.1314
Discovery33 detection rules
Standing C0038
Reach is how much of ATT&CK this campaign touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 56 ATT&CK campaigns only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.
Reach
Techniques2570th pct
70th percentile · 70% of 56 ATT&CK campaigns have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics14Top 4%
96th percentile · 96% of 56 ATT&CK campaigns have this many tactics spanned or fewer.
Tools & malware7Top 11%
89th percentile · 89% of 56 ATT&CK campaigns have this many tools and malware or fewer.
Threat group155% tie · 3 values
55% of the population shares a single value across only 3 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Coverage
Rules / technique33medTop 7%
93rd percentile · 93% of 56 ATT&CK campaigns have this many detection rules per technique or fewer.
Tests / technique3med66th pct
66th percentile · 66% of 56 ATT&CK campaigns have this many atomic tests per technique or fewer.
Data comps / technique4med43% tie · 7 values
43% of the population shares a single value across only 7 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique3medTop 4%
96th percentile · 96% of 56 ATT&CK campaigns have this many mitigations per technique or fewer.
6 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this campaign’s 25 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
The following analytic identifies access to the /api/v1/configuration/users/user-roles/user-role/rest-userrole1/web/web-bookmarks/bookmark endpoint, which is associated with CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887 vulnerabilities. (...)
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', MikeDuddington, '@dudders1', Tim Shelton
2022-08-11
2022-08-18
6f583da0-3a90-4566-a4ed-83c09fe18bbf
This method uses uncommon error codes on failed logons to determine suspicious activity and tampering with accounts that have been disabled or somehow restricted.
The following analytic detects potential exploitation of the Adobe ColdFusion vulnerability, CVE-2023-26360, which allows unauthenticated arbitrary file read. (...)
The following analytic detects suspicious modifications to firewall rule registry settings that allow inbound traffic on specific ports with a public profile. (...)
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Bailey Bercik '@baileybercik'
2022-06-01
—
248649b7-d64f-46f0-9fb2-a52774166fb5
Resource owner password credentials (ROPC) should be avoided if at all possible as this requires the user to expose their current password credentials to the application directly. (...)
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Bailey Bercik '@baileybercik'
2022-06-01
—
55695bc0-c8cf-461f-a379-2535f563c854
Detects when AppLocker "Audit only" enforcement mode reports that an Application, DLL, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App would have been blocked if AppLocker "Enforce rules" enforcement mode was enabled.
The following analytic detects the execution of tools commonly exploited by cybercriminals, such as those used for unauthorized access, network scanning, privilege escalation, password dumping or data exfiltration. (...)
Identifies two sign-ins originating from geographically distant locations, where at least one of the locations may also be atypical for the user, given past behavior.
Threat actors can use an older version of the auditpol binary available inside the NT resource kit to change audit policy configuration to impair detection capability. (...)