G0003: Cleaver
Security context for executives and security teams
G0003: Cleaver describes [Cleaver](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0003) is a threat group that has been attributed to Iranian actors and is responsible for activity tracked as Operation Cleaver. (Citation: Cylance Cleaver) Strong circumstantial evidence suggests Cleaver is linked to Threat Group 2889 (TG-2889). (Citation: Dell Threat Group 2889)
Executive priority
G0003: Cleaver is an official MITRE ATT&CK group. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.
Technical view
Security teams should validate G0003: Cleaver by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (the platforms named in the official object), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
Detection direction
- Validate whether G0003: Cleaver appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
- Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
- Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.
Mitigation priorities
- Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
- Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
- Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits
Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.
This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Cleaver
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
Techniques used
This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1003.001 | LSASS MemorySub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1557.002 | ARP Cache PoisoningSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1588.002 | ToolSub-technique | Cleaver has obtained and used open-source tools such as PsExec, Windows Credential Editor, and Mimikatz.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1587.001 | MalwareSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1585.001 | Social Media AccountsSub-technique |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0056: Net Crawler
Net Crawler is an intranet worm capable of extracting credentials using credential dumpers and spreading to systems on a network over SMB by brute forcing accounts with recovered passwords and using PsExec to execute a copy of Net Crawler. [1]
S0029: PsExec
S0004: TinyZBot
S0002: Mimikatz
All related ATT&CK context
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates.
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.2 | 1.3 | Current bundle | 026e583e8848… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.3 | Older bundle | 25c436a3436d… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
- [1]Cylance Cleaver
Cylance. (2014, December). Operation Cleaver. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
Open source URL - [2]Dell Threat Group 2889
Dell SecureWorks. (2015, October 7). Suspected Iran-Based Hacker Group Creates Network of Fake LinkedIn Profiles. Retrieved January 14, 2016.
- [3]Cleaver
(Citation: Cylance Cleaver)
- [4]TG-2889
(Citation: Dell Threat Group 2889)
- [5]Threat Group 2889
(Citation: Dell Threat Group 2889)
- [6]mitre-attackG0003Open source URL
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