group

Magic Hound G0059

Created: 16 January 2018
Last modified: 31 July 2026
Aliases: Magic Hound · TA453 · COBALT ILLUSION · Charming Kitten · ITG18 · Phosphorus · Newscaster · APT35 · Mint Sandstorm

Magic Hound is an Iranian-sponsored threat group that conducts long term, resource-intensive cyber espionage operations, likely on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They have targeted European, U.S., and Middle Eastern government and military personnel, academics, journalists, and organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), via complex social engineering campaigns since at least 2014.[1][2][3][4][5]

TechniquesTop 4%

TacticsTop 1%

Tools & malwareTop 14%

CampaignsNone recorded

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

Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID
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 when a single rules or all of the rules have been deleted from the Windows Defender Firewall	Generic	test	-	windows	Windows Firewall	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify System Firewall Windows Host Firewall	-	medium	frack113	2022-02-19	2024-08-29	c187c075-bb3e-4c62-b4fa-beae0ffc211f
Splunk	The following analytic detects attempts to dump the LSASS process memory, a common technique in credential dumping attacks. (...)	Generic	stable	process_access	windows	Sysmon	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory	-	medium	Patrick Bareiss, Splunk	2019-12-11	2026-10-09	fb4c31b0-13e8-4155-8aa5-24de4b8d6717
	Detects file access requests to files ending with either the ".hive"/".reg" extension, usually associated with Windows Registry backups.	Hunting	test	file_access	windows	-	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	low	frack113	2023-09-15	2024-07-29	337a31c6-46c4-46be-886a-260d7aa78cac
Splunk	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. (...)	Generic	stable	webserver	-	Suricata	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2024-21887 CVE-2023-46805 CVE-2023-46085	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2024-01-17	2026-05-13	15838756-f425-43fa-9d88-a7f88063e81a
	Detect set Notification_Suppress to 1 to disable the Windows security center notification	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	medium	frack113	2022-08-19	2023-08-17	0c93308a-3f1b-40a9-b649-57ea1a1c1d63
	Detects usage of the "Get-AdComputer" to enumerate Computers or properties within Active Directory.	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery Account Discovery Domain Account Discovery Remote System Discovery	-	low	frack113	2022-03-17	2023-07-08	36bed6b2-e9a0-4fff-beeb-413a92b86138
	Detects the execution of Sysinternals ADExplorer with the "-snapshot" flag in order to save a local copy of the active directory database. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Account Discovery Domain Account Discovery Domain Trust Discovery Discovery Permission Groups Discovery Domain Groups	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-03-14	2025-07-09	9212f354-7775-4e28-9c9f-8f0a4544e664
	Detects when a Microsoft Cloud App Security reported when users were active from an IP address that has been identified as an anonymous proxy IP address.	Generic	test	-	-	Azure Threat Management · Microsoft 365	Command and Control Encrypted Channel	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-23	2022-10-09	d8b0a4fe-07a8-41be-bd39-b14afa025d95
	Detects when a Microsoft Cloud App Security reported when an activity occurs from a location that wasn't recently or never visited by any user in the organization.	Generic	test	-	-	Azure Threat Management · Microsoft 365	Command and Control Encrypted Channel	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-23	2022-10-09	0f2468a2-5055-4212-a368-7321198ee706
	Detects when a Microsoft Cloud App Security reported users were active from an IP address identified as risky by Microsoft Threat Intelligence. (...)	Generic	test	-	-	Azure Threat Detection · Microsoft 365	Command and Control Encrypted Channel	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-23	2022-10-09	a3501e8e-af9e-43c6-8cd6-9360bdaae498
	Detects the degradation of the system firewall security by the creation or re-enabling of per-applic (...)	Generic	experimental	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify System Firewall Windows Host Firewall	-	medium	frack113	2026-10-13	—	6648f900-4a7d-47e3-bad6-952b313a1c0e
	Detect set DisallowRun to 1 to prevent user running specific computer program	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	medium	frack113	2022-08-19	2023-08-17	275641a5-a492-45e2-a817-7c81e9d9d3e9
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of commands to add or set exclusions in Windows Defender. It (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2021-11-25	2026-06-08	773b66fe-4dd9-11ec-8289-acde48001122
	Detects execution of "reg.exe" commands with the "add" or "copy" flags on safe boot registry keys. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-09-02	2024-03-19	d7662ff6-9e97-4596-a61d-9839e32dee8d
	Detects the dual use tool ADExplorer writing a complete AD snapshot into a .dat file. (...)	Generic	experimental	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Discovery Account Discovery Domain Account Discovery Domain Trust Discovery Discovery Permission Groups Discovery Domain Groups	-	medium	Arnim Rupp (Nextron Systems), Thomas Patzke	2025-07-09	—	0a1255c5-d732-4b62-ac02-b5152d34fb83
	Detects suspicious local connections via a named pipe to the AD FS configuration database (Windows Internal Database). (...)	Generic	test	pipe_created	windows	Sysmon	Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g	2021-10-08	2023-11-30	1ea13e8c-03ea-409b-877d-ce5c3d2c1cb3
	Detect remote login by Administrator user (depending on internal pattern).	Generic	test	authentication	windows	WinEventLog Security	Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Stealth Valid Accounts Default Accounts Domain Accounts Local Accounts	-	low	juju4	2017-10-29	2022-10-09	0f63e1ef-1eb9-4226-9d54-8927ca08520a
Splunk	The following analytic detects potential exploitation attempts against Adobe ColdFusion vulnerabilities CVE-2023-29298 and CVE-2023-26360. (...)	Anomaly	stable	webserver	-	Suricata	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2023-29298 CVE-2023-26360	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2023-08-23	2026-05-13	d6821c0b-fcdc-4c95-a77f-e10752fae41a
Splunk	The following analytic detects potential exploitation of the Adobe ColdFusion vulnerability, CVE-2023-26360, which allows unauthenticated arbitrary file read. (...)	Anomaly	stable	webserver	-	Suricata	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2023-26360	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2023-08-23	2026-05-13	695aceae-21db-4e7f-93ac-a52e39d02b93
	Detects the deletion of the "Zone.Identifier" ADS. (...)	Hunting	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2023-09-04	—	7eac0a16-5832-4e81-865f-0268a6d19e4b
	Detects the deletion of the "Zone.Identifier" ADS by an uncommon process. (...)	Generic	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-04	2025-07-04	3109530e-ab47-4cc6-a953-cac5ebcc93ae
	Detects suspicious access to URLs that was noticed in cases in which attackers exploitated the ADSel (...)	Emerging	test	webserver	-	-	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2021-40539	high	Tobias Michalski (Nextron Systems), Max Altgelt (Nextron Systems)	2021-09-20	2023-01-02	6702b13c-e421-44cc-ab33-42cc25570f11
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of network scanning utilities such as Advanced IP Scanner or Advanced Port Scanner. (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Discovery Network Service Discovery Discovery Network Share Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-10-24	2026-05-13	9a4e50c7-5b62-4d52-93b4-f2b61332e9a5
	Detects the use of Advanced IP Scanner. (...)	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Discovery Network Service Discovery	-	medium	@ROxPinTeddy	2020-05-12	2022-11-29	fed85bf9-e075-4280-9159-fbe8a023d6fa
	Detects javaw.exe in AppData folder as used by Adwind / JRAT	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Visual Basic JavaScript	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom Ueltschi, Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community	2017-11-10	2022-10-09	1fac1481-2dbc-48b2-9096-753c49b4ec71
	Detects javaw.exe in AppData folder as used by Adwind / JRAT	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Visual Basic JavaScript	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom Ueltschi, Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community	2017-11-10	2022-12-02	0bcfabcb-7929-47f4-93d6-b33fb67d34d1
	Detects when a all the rules have been deleted from the Windows Defender Firewall configuration	Generic	test	-	windows	Windows Firewall	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify System Firewall Windows Host Firewall	-	high	frack113, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-01-17	2024-01-22	79609c82-a488-426e-abcf-9f341a39365d
	Detects the degradation of the system firewall security by the DoNotAllowExceptions policy value bei (...)	Generic	experimental	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify System Firewall Windows Host Firewall	-	medium	frack113	2026-10-13	—	c69fc6a2-607d-4530-b7d1-75823af1bde4
Splunk	The following analytic detects suspicious modifications to firewall rule registry settings that allow inbound traffic on specific ports with a public profile. (...)	Generic	stable	registry_event	windows	Sysmon	Lateral Movement Remote Services Remote Desktop Protocol	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk, Steven Dick	2021-05-26	2026-05-13	0a46537c-be02-11eb-92ca-acde48001122
Splunk	The following analytic detects a suspicious PowerShell command that allows inbound traffic to a specific local port within the public profile. (...)	Generic	stable	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Lateral Movement Remote Services Remote Desktop Protocol	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-05-19	2026-05-13	a5d85486-b89c-11eb-8267-acde48001122
	Detect enable rdp feature to allow specific user to rdp connect on the targeted machine	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	medium	frack113	2022-08-19	2023-08-17	37b437cf-3fc5-4c8e-9c94-1d7c9aff842b
	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
	Detects code fragments found in small and obfuscated AMSI bypass PowerShell scripts	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-09	—	e0d6c087-2d1c-47fd-8799-3904103c5a98
	Detects attempts to disable AMSI (Anti-Malware Scan Interface) by modifying the AmsiEnable registry value. (...)	Generic	experimental	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2025-12-25	—	aa37cbb0-da36-42cb-a90f-fdf216fc7467
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 a highly relevant Antivirus alert that reports password dumpers and stealers. (...)	Generic	stable	antivirus	-	-	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory Security Account Manager Credential Access Steal or Forge Kerberos Tickets	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Arnim Rupp	2018-09-09	2026-06-15	78cc2dd2-7d20-4d32-93ff-057084c38b93
	Detects a highly relevant Antivirus alert that reports ransomware. (...)	Generic	test	antivirus	-	-	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Arnim Rupp	2022-05-12	2026-06-15	4c6ca276-d4d0-4a8c-9e4c-d69832f8671f
	Detects a highly relevant Antivirus alert that reports a web shell. (...)	Generic	test	antivirus	-	-	Persistence Server Software Component Web Shell	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Arnim Rupp	2018-09-09	2026-06-29	fdf135a2-9241-4f96-a114-bb404948f736
	Detects activity that indicates a user disabling the ability for Antivirus mini filter to inspect a "Dev Drive".	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	@kostastsale, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-11-05	2024-08-16	31e124fb-5dc4-42a0-83b3-44a69c77b271
	Detects attempts to exploit an apache spark server via CVE-2014-6287 from a commandline perspective	Emerging	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2014-6287 CVE-2022-33891	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-07-20	—	c8a5f584-cdc8-42cc-8cce-0398e4265de3
	Detects attempts to exploit an apache spark server via CVE-2014-6287 from a weblogs perspective	Emerging	test	webserver	-	-	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2014-6287 CVE-2022-33891	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-07-19	2023-01-02	1a9a04fd-02d1-465c-abad-d733fd409f9c
	Detects an issue in apache logs that reports threading related errors	Generic	test	-	-	Apache	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application Lateral Movement Exploitation of Remote Services	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2019-01-22	2021-11-27	e9a2b582-3f6a-48ac-b4a1-6849cdc50b3c
	Detects the removal or uninstallation of an application via "Wmic.EXE".	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Windows Management Instrumentation	-	medium	frack113	2022-01-28	2024-07-02	b53317a0-8acf-4fd1-8de8-a5401e776b96
	Detects an attempt to terminate a process via "wmic" with the "call terminate" flag. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Windows Management Instrumentation	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-11	—	49d9671b-0a0a-4c09-8280-d215bfd30662
	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 DNS queries made by "AppInstaller.EXE". (...)	Generic	test	dns	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	frack113	2021-11-24	2023-11-09	7cff77e1-9663-46a3-8260-17f2e1aa9d0a

Title

Description

Magic Hound G0059

Magic Hound G0059

Magic Hound MITRE reference G0059

Magic Hound MITRE reference G0059

Standing G0059

Reach

Coverage

Magic Hound detections G0059