group

CopyKittens G0052

Created: 16 January 2018
Last modified: 31 July 2026
Alias: CopyKittens

CopyKittens is an Iranian cyber espionage group that has been operating since at least 2013. It has targeted countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the U.S., Jordan, and Germany. The group is responsible for the campaign known as Operation Wilted Tulip.[1][2][3]

Techniques26th pct

Tactics34th pct

Tools & malware55th pct

CampaignsNone recorded

Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.

Standing G0052

Reach is how much of ATT&CK this group 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 176 ATT&CK groups 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.

Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID	Refs
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of 7z or 7za processes with command lines pointing to SMB network shares. (...)	Hunting	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-08-17	2026-05-13	01d29b48-ff6f-11eb-b81e-acde48001123
	Detects execution of 7z in order to compress a file with a ".dmp"/".dump" extension, which could be a step in a process of dump file exfiltration.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-09-27	2026-06-05	ec570e53-4c76-45a9-804d-dc3f355ff7a7
	Detects alternate PowerShell hosts potentially bypassing detections looking for powershell.exe	Generic	test	ps_module	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g	2019-08-11	2025-10-17	64e8e417-c19a-475a-8d19-98ea705394cc
	Detects alternate PowerShell hosts potentially bypassing detections looking for powershell.exe	Generic	test	pipe_created	windows	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g, Tim Shelton	2019-09-12	2025-10-07	58cb02d5-78ce-4692-b3e1-dce850aae41a
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of 7z.exe, a 7-Zip utility, spawned from rundll32.exe or dllhost.exe. (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	medium	Michael Haag, Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-04-22	2026-05-13	9364ee8e-a39a-11eb-8f1d-acde48001122
	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.	Generic	experimental	-	windows	AppLocker	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Python Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	medium	heyyanu	2026-03-26	—	557e3bd3-7f21-495d-8d50-7c8bdfb8041c
	Detects when AppLocker prevents the execution of an Application, DLL, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App from running.	Generic	test	-	windows	AppLocker	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Python Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	medium	Pushkarev Dmitry	2020-06-28	2025-12-03	401e5d00-b944-11ea-8f9a-00163ecd60ae
	Detects indicators of APT 29 (Cozy Bear) phishing-campaign as reported by mandiant	Emerging	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution Rundll32	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), @41thexplorer	2018-11-20	2023-03-08	7453575c-a747-40b9-839b-125a0aae324b
	Detects indicators of APT 29 (Cozy Bear) phishing-campaign as reported by mandiant	Emerging	stable	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution Rundll32	-	critical	@41thexplorer	2018-11-20	2023-02-20	3a3f81ca-652c-482b-adeb-b1c804727f74
	Detects APT31 Judgement Panda activity as described in the Crowdstrike 2019 Global Threat Report	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2019-02-21	2023-03-10	03e2746e-2b31-42f1-ab7a-eb39365b2422
	Detects changes to the EC2 instance startup script. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Unix Shell	-	high	faloker	2020-02-12	2022-06-07	1ab3c5ed-5baf-417b-bb6b-78ca33f6c3df
	Detects attackers using tooling with bad opsec defaults. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution Rundll32	-	high	Oleg Kolesnikov @securonix invrep_de, oscd.community, Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Christian Burkard (Nextron Systems)	2020-10-23	2024-08-15	a7c3d773-caef-227e-a7e7-c2f13c622329
	focuses on trivial artifacts observed in variants of prevalent offensive ps1 payloads, including Cob (...)	Generic	test	ps_module	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	critical	ok @securonix invrep_de, oscd.community	2020-10-09	2022-12-25	8d31a8ce-46b5-4dd6-bdc3-680931f1db86
	Detects usage of the "FromBase64String" function in the commandline which is used to decode a base64 (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Stealth Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2020-01-29	2023-01-26	e32d4572-9826-4738-b651-95fa63747e8a
	Detects default file names outputted by the BloodHound collection tool SharpHound	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Discovery Account Discovery Local Account Domain Account Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Discovery Domain Trust Discovery Discovery Permission Groups Discovery Local Groups Domain Groups	-	high	C.J. May	2022-08-09	2026-02-19	02773bed-83bf-469f-b7ff-e676e7d78bab
	Detects execution of Chromium based browser in headless mode	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Hide Artifacts Hidden Window Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-12	—	ef9dcfed-690c-4c5d-a9d1-482cd422225c
	Detects powershell execution with that make use of to the bxor (Bitwise XOR). (...)	Hunting	test	ps_classic_start	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	low	Teymur Kheirkhabarov, Harish Segar	2020-06-29	2024-12-11	812837bb-b17f-45e9-8bd0-0ec35d2e3bd6
	Detects calls to cmdlets that are used to export certificates from the local certificate store. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Private Keys	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-05-18	—	9e716b33-63b2-46da-86a4-bd3c3b9b5dfb
	Detects changing the PowerShell script execution policy to a potentially insecure level using the "-ExecutionPolicy" flag.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	frack113	2021-11-01	2025-10-07	87e3c4e8-a6a8-4ad9-bb4f-46e7ff99a180
	Detects changing the PowerShell script execution policy to a potentially insecure level using the "Set-ExecutionPolicy" cmdlet.	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	frack113	2021-10-20	2023-12-14	61d0475c-173f-4844-86f7-f3eebae1c66b
	Detects execution of ChromeLoader malware via a registered scheduled task	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation Scheduled Task/Job Scheduled Task Persistence Software Extensions	-	high	@kostastsale	2022-01-10	—	0a74c5a9-1b71-4475-9af2-7829d320d5c2
Splunk	This analytic detects creation of a Cisco IOS-XE tunnel interface with tunnel source, tunnel destination, and an IP address in the 10.10.12.0 network. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	8654314d-8e4d-4971-9f35-b9d477bf668e
Splunk	The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Command and Control Non-Standard Port Privilege Escalation, Stealth Process Injection Command and Control Remote Access Tools Lateral Movement Remote Services	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	d85c05c8-42c0-4e4a-87e7-4e1bb3e844e3
Splunk	The following analytic detects outbound connections to commonly abused file sharing and pastebin-style hosting domains. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Exfiltration to Cloud Storage Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Resource Development Obtain Capabilities Tool Command and Control Proxy External Proxy	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	f7e5e792-d907-46c1-a58e-4ff974dc462a
Splunk	This analytic detects exploitation activity of CVE-2023-27532 using Cisco Secure Firewall Intrusion Events. (...)	Generic	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application Lateral Movement Exploitation of Remote Services Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory	CVE-2023-27532	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk, Talos NTDR	2025-04-16	2026-05-13	7b7c2e92-f0b2-48d2-9c9b-b8de52b6b2ae
	Various protocols maybe used to put data on the device for exfil or infil	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility Collection Data Staged Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	5e51acb2-bcbe-435b-99c6-0e3cd5e2aa59	-
	Detects execution of the "cloudflared" tool with the tunnel "cleanup" flag in order to cleanup tunnel connections.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy Command and Control Web Service	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-05-17	2023-12-21	7050bba1-1aed-454e-8f73-3f46f09ce56a
	Detects execution of the "cloudflared" tool to connect back to a tunnel. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy Command and Control Web Service	-	medium	Janantha Marasinghe, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-05-17	2023-12-20	9a019ffc-3580-4c9d-8d87-079f7e8d3fd4
	Detects cmd.exe executing commands with the "start" utility using "/b" (no window) or "/min" (minimized) flags. (...)	Generic	experimental	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Hide Artifacts Hidden Window	-	medium	Vladan Sekulic, Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-01-24	—	5a6b7c8d-9e0f-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f7a8b9c0d
	Detects Windows command lines that miss a space before or after the /c flag when running a command using the cmd.exe. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-08-23	2026-05-13	a16980c2-0c56-4de0-9a79-17971979efdd
	Rundll32 can be use by Cobalt Strike with StartW function to load DLLs from the command line.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution Rundll32	-	high	Wojciech Lesicki	2021-06-01	2022-09-16	ae9c6a7c-9521-42a6-915e-5aaa8689d529
	Detects launch of executable by calling the LaunchApplication function from pcwutl.dll library.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution Rundll32	-	medium	Julia Fomina, oscd.community	2020-10-05	2023-02-09	9386d78a-7207-4048-9c9f-a93a7c2d1c05
	Detects a suspicious command line execution that includes an URL and AppData string in the command l (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community	2019-01-16	2021-11-27	1ac8666b-046f-4201-8aba-1951aaec03a3
	Detects an executable initiating a network connection to "LocaltoNet" tunneling sub-domains. (...)	Generic	test	network_connection	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy Command and Control Web Service	-	high	Andreas Braathen (mnemonic.io)	2024-06-17	—	3ab65069-d82a-4d44-a759-466661a082d1
	Detects an executable initiating a network connection to "LocaltoNet" tunneling sub-domains. (...)	Generic	test	network_connection	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy Command and Control Web Service	-	high	Andreas Braathen (mnemonic.io)	2024-06-17	—	c4568f5d-131f-4e78-83d4-45b2da0ec4f1
	Detects an executable accessing an ngrok tunneling endpoint, which could be a sign of forbidden exfi (...)	Generic	test	network_connection	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Dynamic Resolution Domain Generation Algorithms Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy Command and Control Web Service	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-03	—	19bf6fdb-7721-4f3d-867f-53467f6a5db6
	Detects an executable initiating a network connection to "ngrok" tunneling domains. (...)	Generic	test	network_connection	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Dynamic Resolution Domain Generation Algorithms Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Command and Control Protocol Tunneling Command and Control Proxy Command and Control Web Service	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-03	2024-02-02	1d08ac94-400d-4469-a82f-daee9a908849
	An adversary may compress or encrypt data that is collected prior to exfiltration using 3rd party ut (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	medium	frack113	2021-07-27	2026-06-05	9fbf5927-5261-4284-a71d-f681029ea574
	An adversary may compress or encrypt data that is collected prior to exfiltration using 3rd party ut (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	medium	frack113	2021-07-27	2022-12-25	e2e80da2-8c66-4e00-ae3c-2eebd29f6b6d
	Detects execution of "tar.exe" in order to create a compressed file. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), AdmU3	2023-12-19	—	418a3163-3247-4b7b-9933-dcfcb7c52ea9
	Detects execution of "tar.exe" in order to extract compressed file. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	low	AdmU3	2023-12-19	—	bf361876-6620-407a-812f-bfe11e51e924
	Detects setting proxy configuration	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Proxy	-	low	Ömer Günal	2020-06-17	2022-10-05	72f4ab3f-787d-495d-a55d-68c2ff46cf4c	-
	Detects usage of the "ConvertTo-SecureString" cmdlet via the commandline. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	medium	Teymur Kheirkhabarov (idea), Vasiliy Burov (rule), oscd.community, Tim Shelton	2020-10-11	2023-02-01	74403157-20f5-415d-89a7-c505779585cf
Splunk	The following analytic detects potential exploitation of the CrushFTP authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2025-31161). (...)	Generic	stable	file_event	-	CrushFTP	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2025-31161	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2025-04-14	2026-09-08	82eb7f64-d219-4e21-acfe-956de84c1a35
	Detects files created during the local privilege exploitation of CVE-2022-24527 Microsoft Connected (...)	Emerging	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	CVE-2022-24527	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-04-13	—	e0a41412-c69a-446f-8e6e-0e6d7483dad7
	An adversary may compress data (e.g., sensitive documents) that is collected prior to exfiltration in order to make it portable and minimize the amount of data sent over the network.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility	-	low	Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community	2019-10-21	2023-07-28	a3b5e3e9-1b49-4119-8b8e-0344a01f21ee
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of the Certify tool via an in-memory PowerShell function to enumerate Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) environments. (...)	Generic	stable	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Credential Access Steal or Forge Authentication Certificates	-	medium	Steven Dick	2023-07-28	2026-05-13	f533ca6c-9440-4686-80cb-7f294c07812a
Splunk	The following analytic detects suspicious PowerShell execution indicative of PowerShell-Empire activity. (...)	Generic	stable	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2021-06-09	2026-05-13	bc1dc6b8-c954-11eb-bade-acde48001122
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of Mimikatz commands via PowerShell by leveraging PowerShell Script Block Logging (EventCode=4104). (...)	Generic	stable	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Credential Access OS Credential Dumping	-	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2021-06-09	2026-05-13	8148c29c-c952-11eb-9255-acde48001122
	This rule detects execution of a PowerShell code through the sqlps.exe utility, which is included in the standard set of utilities supplied with the MSSQL Server. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Execution, Stealth Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution	-	medium	Agro (@agro_sev) oscd.community	2020-10-10	2022-12-09	0152550d-3a26-4efd-9f0e-54a0b28ae2f3

Title

Description

CopyKittens G0052

CopyKittens G0052

CopyKittens MITRE reference G0052

Standing G0052

Reach

Coverage

CopyKittens detections G0052