Cutting Kitten, TG-2889

Description

Cleaver is a threat group that has been attributed to Iranian actors and is responsible for activity tracked as Operation Cleaver. Strong circumstantial evidence suggests Cleaver is linked to Threat Group 2889 (TG-2889).

This group evolved into Magic Hound, APT 35, Cobalt Illusion, Charming Kitten.

Names

Name	Name-Giver
Cutting Kitten	CrowdStrike
TG-2889	SecureWorks

Country

• Iran

Sponsor

State-sponsored, security company ITSecTeam

Motivation

• Information theft and espionage

First Seen

2012

Observed Sectors

• Aerospace
• Aviation
• Chemical
• Defense
• Education
• Energy
• Financial
• Government
• Healthcare
• Oil and gas
• Technology
• Telecommunications
• Transportation
• Utilities
• (banks_ Bank of America, US Bancorp, Fifth Third Bank, Citigroup, PNC, BB&T, Wells Fargo, Capital One and HSBC)

Observed Countries

• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Israel
• Kuwait
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Pakistan
• Qatar
• Saudi Arabia
• South Korea
• Turkey
• UAE
• UK
• USA

Tools

• CsExt
• DistTrack
• Jasus
• KAgent
• Leash
• Logger Module
• MPKBot
• Net Crawler
• PupyRAT
• PVZ-In
• PVZ-Out
• SynFlooder
• SysKit
• TinyZBot
• WndTest
• zhCat
• zhMimikatz

Operations

• 2012: Operation “Cleaver” Operation Cleaver has, over the past several years, conducted a significant global surveillance and infiltration campaign. To date it has successfully evaded detection by existing security technologies. The group is believed to work from Tehran, Iran, although auxiliary team members were identified in other locations including the Netherlands, Canada, and the UK. The group successfully leveraged both publicly available, and customized tools to attack and compromise targets around the globe. The targets include military, oil and gas, energy and utilities, transportation, airlines, airports, hospitals, telecommunications, technology, education, aerospace, Defense Industrial Base (DIB), chemical companies, and governments. https://www.cylance.com/content/dam/cylance/pages/operation-cleaver/Cylance_Operation_Cleaver_Report.pdf
• 2013: Attack on the Bowman Avenue Dam Iranian hackers infiltrated the control system of a small dam less than 20 miles from New York City two years ago, sparking concerns that reached to the White House, according to former and current U.S. officials and experts familiar with the previously undisclosed incident. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-hackers-infiltrated-new-york-dam-in-2013-1450662559
• 2015: Network of Fake LinkedIn Profiles While tracking a suspected Iran-based threat group known as Threat Group-2889 (TG-2889), Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers uncovered a network of fake LinkedIn profiles. These convincing profiles form a self-referenced network of seemingly established LinkedIn users. CTU researchers assess with high confidence the purpose of this network is to target potential victims through social engineering. https://www.secureworks.com/research/suspected-iran-based-hacker-group-creates-network-of-fake-linkedin-profiles

Counter Operations

• 2016-03: U.S. indicts Iranians for hacking dozens of banks, New York dam https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-cyber/u-s-indicts-iranians-for-hacking-dozens-of-banks-new-york-dam-idUSKCN0WQ1JF

Mitre Attack

• https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0003/

Other Information

Uuid

4622bc44-8c01-4807-8d12-b22352472c29

Last Card Change

2022-09-13