As of late, it seems as though the frequency and prominence of cyber attacks has seen a rise globally. Now in an everchanging and technologically advancing civilization, this should come as no surprise. With that said however, it is still important to be made self-aware of the potential dangers and threats that exist, which leads into the topic of this blog post about MuddyWater.
What is MuddyWater and what has it done?
MuddyWater, also sometimes known as “Mercury” or “Static Kitten”, is an Iranian state-sponsored threat actor, which has been active since at least 2017. In other words, they are a group of hackers who can be attributed to the Iranian government or, more specifically, Ministry of Intelligence and Security; working, in essence, for the sake of furthering the nation’s geopolitical objectives.
In terms of what the group has done, they have been accredited as being the sole cause of cyber attacks on several government owned corporations; whether that may be through phishing tactics or malware. With the majority of these attacks happening within the Middle East and nearby Asian countries. Furthermore, it seems that the frequency of these attacks by the group has seen an increase especially within the past year of 2021, which does raise a few eyebrows out of concern.
Why are they relevant?
For starters, a few weeks back in late February of 2022, warnings had been sent out against the group in response to these global cyber attacks which, as already mentioned, have been occurring more frequently. This in of itself should be cause for some concern, especially given current circumstances regarding the Russia and Ukraine conflicts, where, globally, political tensions are already high enough as is.
More recently, however, the threat intelligence organization Cisco Talos has publicized their findings in regards to their tracing on the activities of the group, which has been happening for over a year now. In their research, it seems that they have traced several campaigns or cyber attacks back to MuddyWater, also analyzing the method of attack and the programming behind it. By doing so, Cisco Talos has deduced that MuddyWater is likely to be comprised of several subgroups, with each based in a different region, that share common interests; in opposition to one larger group who may be entirely based in Iran. A deduction, which potentially exposes the Iranian government, given that several of these cyber attacks that Cisco Talos has analyzed were previously blamed on Western nations for by the Iranian government themselves.
How might this impact the average citizen?
With the recent findings and deductions made, if these do turn out to be true, it certainly would not look good for the Iranian government, which could further damage already dwindling relationships between Iran and other Western nations. Additionally, should MuddyWater consist of several subgroups, it certainly has the potential to make the group a lot more dangerous than they currently are as it introduces the possibility of the group going more widespread than they are now, which may allow for a higher frequency of attacks within places such as North America, Europe, and the remaining parts of Asia as opposed to just the Middle East and places nearby. Not to mention that while the usual victims do tend to be governments or government owned corporations, the possibility that an average citizen also becomes a victim as a side effect always exists, especially given that they have used widespread scam tactics, such as phishing, before.
References
- https://www.govinfosecurity.com/iranian-apt-new-methods-to-target-turkey-arabian-peninsula-a-18706
- https://thehackernews.com/2022/03/iranian-hackers-targeting-turkey-and.html
- https://www.techrepublic.com/article/muddywater-targets-middle-eastern-and-asian-countries-in-phishing-attacks/
- https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2022/03/iranian-supergroup-muddywater.html
Interesting post! I’ve heard of the hacking group MuddyWater before and I think it’s crazy that they’ve caused numerous cyberattacks on governments. Considering our current situation with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia this group can cause more problems meaning more tension between both countries.
This post highlights how cyberwarfare is becoming more predominant and can cause adverse effects on the victims of these attacks. I think cyberwarfare will become one of the most important aspects of warfare and controlling people. This is currently happening in Russia, they are being subject to many cyberattacks from many different groups including the famous hacker group “Anonymous”. The more Russia pushes on with this pointless war the more they will be subject to these attacks, and the more they and there citizens will suffer. It will be interesting and scary to see how cyberwarfare evolves in the future.
Government sponsored cyberattacking is something that should concern everybody, and I would highly doubt that Iran is the only country that engaged in it. It’s one thing to see how much damage individuals can do to people and institutions using computers, and at least having the knowledge that they will face repercussions if caught, and another thing entirely to know that the group is protected by a powerful entity. It’s unimaginable the amount of information a group with access to government resources could get, and what they could do with these resources to negatively affect citizens around the world. The threat of these types of groups keeps expanding, but it almost feels as though the issue is pushed aside to the extent that I hear more about shark attacks than I do these kinds of activities in every day life. Obviously awareness isn’t the cure for everything, but people can’t even begin to hold governments accountable without some idea that this stuff is going on.
Good post!
It’s startling to see these hacking groups and hear about what they’re capable of and the damage they’ve caused, especially in light of the present situation in Russia and Ukraine, where political tensions are already high enough. These government-sponsored hacks should worry everyone since they include sensitive information. This is an excellent Blog post!
Great post! It is surprising to see that a government would fund their own hacker group, and go as far as to hack other governments, and their companies. I guess you could say that it is similar to espionage like they used to do before technology became prominent. My opinion on this is considering that the MuddyWater group is controlled by the government, cyber attacks from them should be considered as bad as a physical attack, like a bombing. The reason I believe this is because the internet, and technology as a whole is such an important aspect of our age, that attacking it could be just as bad as destroying an important building, and in some cases, even worse. Thank you for informing us about this group.
After dealing with covid for over two years now and the Ukraine crisis, this just adds more fuel to the already massive bonfire that is global tensions right now. If Iran really is doing this, which is almost certainly the case based on what you wrote here, and they have been blaming their attacks on western countries, this could lead to even more conflict between nations. In a time where we should all be working together to weather the current storm, this is just another hurricane looming on the horizon
Great post! I don’t understand why governments do things that put their citizens in danger, they should be there to protect and serve their citizens but when it comes to politics which is almost always about gaining power everything else is disregarded for.
Interesting topic. i like the way you built around the topic to provide the maximum information possible .
Great job !
Amazing post!! It’s always interesting to see the intersection between governments and the online world, but especially concerning that this can have diplomatic repercussions. It’s quite scary thinking that this can further strain relations between western countries, on top of the potential war, and the pandemic. Additionally, governments having access to potentially very sensitive information is worrisome, and hopefully is not being used to gain intelligence on individuals.
Great post! Cyber attacks have definitely increased during the current war between Russia and Ukraine. As Russia keeps on invading, I believe a lot of cyberattacks are yet to come, since that’s a whole new way to attack another country in this technological age. It is really unfortunate if it is true that the Iranian government is funding such a hacker group, it could definitely result in conflicts in the future because of this (western nations being blamed for these actions) .
All in all, this was a really informative piece of work. Great job!
Good Post! I’ve read about MuddyWater before, but I did not know that they were composed of several subgroups. It still baffles me that there are government-affiliated groups that perform illegal cyberattacks against the software and official government websites of other nations. These attacks can be seen as a form of attack from one nation against the other. An attack by one nation against the other is seen as grounds to declare war. But when these types of attacks occur, no formal declaration is made, no troops are sent, no war is declared, yet these attacks have been shown to cause millions in damages for the attacked country. These types of government-affiliated “hacker” groups are very interesting, to say the least, and I am interested to see how they will affect (and already have affected) the current and evolving situation in Ukraine, where a war has been formally declared.
Great post! It’s interesting to keep learning about these state-sponsored hacker teams. There have been quite a few popping up in the Ukraine invasion on both sides. It will be interesting to know whether the Western states have teams aimed at their enemy states. I know there has been a lot of noise about hackers from China and Russia but its interesting to see the rest of the world’s involvement.
The issues of space and territory are very interesting in this post. I wonder what the advantages and disadvantages are for MuddyWater if it is actually a series of groups based in different regions. This dispersed structure also brings another question to mind: could a cyber threat group be nomadic and just keep moving across the globe in secret? Could the attackers work from home on their laptops the way an employee at a tech company could?
Great idea Iran, kick the hornets nest even harder when tensions between you and the United States are already high enough. At least this isn’t the Cold War era where the US was still itching for another international incident to keep things fresh.
State sponsored hackers aren’t a new topic, but its interesting how a relatively smaller country like Iran would look into sponsoring threat actors such as MuddyWater. What they seek to gain from these attacks is anyone’s guess, but it can’t be any good especially once they start targeting more countries, or even civilians. The internet is a battlefield like any other, one that we rarely recognize as such, and therefore even when common people like you or me are sitting around on our computers doing whatever, its ever more important to remain prudent about these sorts of attacks going on, and to always practice proper security. At least when it comes to groups like MuddyWater, we’re more collateral than anything.
Thanks for the post, great eye opener on yet another group of hackers looking to make history.
A really interesting post! I like how it is just generally known that this group is part of a nation’s security forces, despite operating under a completely different name. In your opinion, do you think that the revelation of the group potentially being multiple smaller groups will complicate both enforcement procedures and defensive measures against muddywater?
I’ve never heard of MuddyWater before since most cybercriminal groups I’ve heard of were from Russia, I wonder if this group will evolve and target nations beyond its geological sphere. Its interesting to see that MuddyWater consists of subgroups that target specific areas and it seems like more and more state sponsored cyber threats will arise and get more organized under governmental endorsements. Hopefully this doesn’t raise tension in the middle east too much since that region is a hotbed of political tensions. I wonder how Saudi Arabia would respond to MuddyWater as it is the respective counterweight in the middle east, they definitely have the finances and the capabilities to sponsor their own cyber group. It seems like it is inevitable that countries will begin to include cyber warfare in their militaries to use in regular warfare.
Nice Post!
I agree with your post. It is super important for users to be educated on online safety, because cyber attacks are rising every day. I feel like if the recent findings you mentioned in your post are true, it might cause a new cyber war with western nations. The Iranian government will indeed be at risk from getting hacked.