DarkHydrus is a threat group that has targeted government agencies and educational institutions in the Middle East since at least 2016. The group heavily leverages open-source tools and custom payloads for carrying out attacks.[1][2]
| Domain | ID | Name | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1059 | .001 | Command and Scripting Interpreter:PowerShell | DarkHydrus leveraged PowerShell to download and execute additional scripts for execution.[1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1187 | Forced Authentication | DarkHydrus usedTemplate Injection to launch an authentication window for users to enter their credentials.[3] | |
| Enterprise | T1564 | .003 | Hide Artifacts:Hidden Window | DarkHydrus has used |
| Enterprise | T1588 | .002 | Obtain Capabilities:Tool | DarkHydrus has obtained and used tools such asMimikatz,Empire, andCobalt Strike.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1566 | .001 | Phishing:Spearphishing Attachment | DarkHydrus has sent spearphishing emails with password-protected RAR archives containing malicious Excel Web Query files (.iqy). The group has also sent spearphishing emails that contained malicious Microsoft Office documents that use the "attachedTemplate" technique to load a template from a remote server.[1][3][2] |
| Enterprise | T1221 | Template Injection | DarkHydrus used an open-source tool, Phishery, to inject malicious remote template URLs into Microsoft Word documents and then sent them to victims to enableForced Authentication.[3] | |
| Enterprise | T1204 | .002 | User Execution:Malicious File | DarkHydrus has sent malware that required users to hit the enable button in Microsoft Excel to allow an .iqy file to be downloaded.[1][2] |