APT42 is an Iranian-sponsored threat group that conducts cyber espionage and surveillance.[1] The group primarily focuses on targets in the Middle East region, but has targeted a variety of industries and countries since at least 2015.[1]APT42 starts cyber operations through spearphishing emails and/or the PINEFLOWER Android malware, then monitors and collects information from the compromised systems and devices.[1] Finally, APT42 exfiltrates data using native features and open-source tools.[2]
APT42 activities have been linked to Magic Hound by other commercial vendors. While there are behavior and software overlaps between Magic Hound and APT42, they appear to be distinct entities and are tracked as separate entities by their originating vendor.
32
Techniques69th pct
12
Tactics73rd pct
2
Tools & malware39th pct
0
CampaignsNone recorded
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
APT42 has used custom malware to log keystrokes.10
Credential Access · Collection3 detection rules
Standing G1044
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.
Reach
Techniques3269th pct
69th percentile · 69% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics1273rd pct
73rd percentile · 73% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many tactics spanned or fewer.
Tools & malware239th pct
39th percentile · 61% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more tools and malware.
Campaigns089% tie · 4 values
89% of the population shares a single value across only 4 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Coverage
Rules / technique12med31st pct
31st percentile · 69% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique3med50th pct
50th percentile · 50% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more atomic tests per technique.
Data comps / technique4med65% tie · 12 values
65% of the population shares a single value across only 12 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique1med43% tie · 11 values
43% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
5 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this group’s 32 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
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. (...)
Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. (...)
This analytic detects potential reconnaissance activities on Cisco ASA devices by identifying execution of multiple information-gathering "show" commands within a short timeframe. (...)