| CARVIEW |
POWERSTATS
POWERSTATS is a PowerShell-based first stage backdoor used by MuddyWater. [1]
Associated Software Descriptions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Powermud |
Techniques Used
| Domain | ID | Name | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1087 | .001 | Account Discovery: Local Account |
POWERSTATS can retrieve usernames from compromised hosts.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1059 | .001 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell |
POWERSTATS uses PowerShell for obfuscation and execution.[1][4][5][6] |
| .005 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic |
POWERSTATS can use VBScript (VBE) code for execution.[4][5] |
||
| .007 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript |
POWERSTATS can use JavaScript code for execution.[4] |
||
| Enterprise | T1132 | .001 | Data Encoding: Standard Encoding |
POWERSTATS encoded C2 traffic with base64.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1005 | Data from Local System |
POWERSTATS can upload files from compromised hosts.[3] |
|
| Enterprise | T1140 | Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information |
POWERSTATS can deobfuscate the main backdoor code.[4] |
|
| Enterprise | T1573 | .002 | Encrypted Channel: Asymmetric Cryptography |
POWERSTATS has encrypted C2 traffic with RSA.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1562 | .001 | Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools |
POWERSTATS can disable Microsoft Office Protected View by changing Registry keys.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1070 | .004 | Indicator Removal: File Deletion |
POWERSTATS can delete all files on the C:\, D:\, E:\ and, F:\ drives using PowerShell Remove-Item commands.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer |
POWERSTATS can retrieve and execute additional PowerShell payloads from the C2 server.[3] |
|
| Enterprise | T1559 | .001 | Inter-Process Communication: Component Object Model |
POWERSTATS can use DCOM (targeting the 127.0.0.1 loopback address) to execute additional payloads on compromised hosts.[3] |
| .002 | Inter-Process Communication: Dynamic Data Exchange |
POWERSTATS can use DDE to execute additional payloads on compromised hosts.[3] |
||
| Enterprise | T1036 | .004 | Masquerading: Masquerade Task or Service |
POWERSTATS has created a scheduled task named "MicrosoftEdge" to establish persistence.[4] |
| Enterprise | T1027 | .010 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Command Obfuscation |
POWERSTATS uses character replacement, PowerShell environment variables, and XOR encoding to obfuscate code. POWERSTATS's backdoor code is a multi-layer obfuscated, encoded, and compressed blob. [3][4] POWERSTATS has used PowerShell code with custom string obfuscation [5] |
| .016 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Junk Code Insertion |
POWERSTATS has used useless code blocks to counter analysis.[5] |
||
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery |
POWERSTATS has used |
|
| Enterprise | T1090 | .002 | Proxy: External Proxy |
POWERSTATS has connected to C2 servers through proxies.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1053 | .005 | Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task |
POWERSTATS has established persistence through a scheduled task using the command |
| Enterprise | T1029 | Scheduled Transfer |
POWERSTATS can sleep for a given number of seconds.[3] |
|
| Enterprise | T1113 | Screen Capture |
POWERSTATS can retrieve screenshots from compromised hosts.[3][5] |
|
| Enterprise | T1518 | .001 | Software Discovery: Security Software Discovery |
POWERSTATS has detected security tools.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1218 | .005 | System Binary Proxy Execution: Mshta |
POWERSTATS can use Mshta.exe to execute additional payloads on compromised hosts.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery |
POWERSTATS can retrieve OS name/architecture and computer/domain name information from compromised hosts.[3][5] |
|
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery |
POWERSTATS can retrieve IP, network adapter configuration information, and domain from compromised hosts.[3][5] |
|
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery |
POWERSTATS has the ability to identify the username on the compromised host.[5] |
|
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation |
POWERSTATS can use WMI queries to retrieve data from compromised hosts.[3][4] |
|
Groups That Use This Software
References
- Lancaster, T.. (2017, November 14). Muddying the Water: Targeted Attacks in the Middle East. Retrieved March 15, 2018.
- Symantec DeepSight Adversary Intelligence Team. (2018, December 10). Seedworm: Group Compromises Government Agencies, Oil & Gas, NGOs, Telecoms, and IT Firms. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
- Singh, S. et al.. (2018, March 13). Iranian Threat Group Updates Tactics, Techniques and Procedures in Spear Phishing Campaign. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
- ClearSky Cyber Security. (2018, November). MuddyWater Operations in Lebanon and Oman: Using an Israeli compromised domain for a two-stage campaign. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
- Lunghi, D. and Horejsi, J.. (2019, June 10). MuddyWater Resurfaces, Uses Multi-Stage Backdoor POWERSTATS V3 and New Post-Exploitation Tools. Retrieved May 14, 2020.
- FBI, CISA, CNMF, NCSC-UK. (2022, February 24). Iranian Government-Sponsored Actors Conduct Cyber Operations Against Global Government and Commercial Networks. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
- ClearSky. (2019, June). Iranian APT group ‘MuddyWater’ Adds Exploits to Their Arsenal. Retrieved May 14, 2020.