G0038: Stealth Falcon
Stealth Falcon is a threat group that has conducted targeted spyware attacks against Emirati journalists, activists, and dissidents since at least 2012. Circumstantial evidence suggests there could be a link between this group and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government, but that has not been confirmed. [1]
Security context for executives and security teams
G0038: Stealth Falcon describes [Stealth Falcon](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0038) is a threat group that has conducted targeted spyware attacks against Emirati journalists, activists, and dissidents since at least 2012. Circumstantial evidence suggests there could be a link between this group and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government, but that has not been confirmed. (Citation: Citizen Lab Stealth Falcon May 2016)
Executive priority
G0038: Stealth Falcon 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 G0038: Stealth Falcon 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 G0038: Stealth Falcon 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.
Stealth Falcon
Stealth Falcon is a threat group that has conducted targeted spyware attacks against Emirati journalists, activists, and dissidents since at least 2012. Circumstantial evidence suggests there could be a link between this group and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government, but that has not been confirmed. [1]
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 | T1555.004 | Windows Credential ManagerSub-technique | Stealth Falcon malware gathers passwords from the Windows Credential Vault.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059 | Command and Scripting Interpreter | Stealth Falcon malware uses WMI to script data collection and command execution on the victim.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1555.003 | Credentials from Web BrowsersSub-technique | Stealth Falcon malware gathers passwords from multiple sources, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1555 | Credentials from Password Stores | Stealth Falcon malware gathers passwords from multiple sources, including Windows Credential Vault and Outlook.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery | Stealth Falcon malware gathers a list of running processes.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | Stealth Falcon malware gathers the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table from the victim.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1573.001 | Symmetric CryptographySub-technique | Stealth Falcon malware encrypts C2 traffic using RC4 with a hard-coded key.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1012 | Query Registry | Stealth Falcon malware attempts to determine the installed version of .NET by querying the Registry.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1071.001 | Web ProtocolsSub-technique | Stealth Falcon malware communicates with its C2 server via HTTPS.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery | Stealth Falcon malware gathers the registered user and primary owner name via WMI.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | Stealth Falcon malware gathers system information via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).[1] |
| Enterprise | T1005 | Data from Local System | Stealth Falcon malware gathers data from the local victim system.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1041 | Exfiltration Over C2 Channel | After data is collected by Stealth Falcon malware, it is exfiltrated over the existing C2 channel.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.001 | PowerShellSub-technique | Stealth Falcon malware uses PowerShell commands to perform various functions, including gathering system information via WMI and executing commands from its C2 server.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1053.005 | Scheduled TaskSub-technique | Stealth Falcon malware creates a scheduled task entitled “IE Web Cache” to execute a malicious file hourly.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | Stealth Falcon malware gathers system information via WMI, including the system directory, build number, serial number, version, manufacturer, model, and total physical memory.[1] |
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 | 1.2 | Current bundle | c42c4e473495… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.2 | Older bundle | b4351f018f23… |
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]Citizen Lab Stealth Falcon May 2016
Marczak, B. and Scott-Railton, J.. (2016, May 29). Keep Calm and (Don’t) Enable Macros: A New Threat Actor Targets UAE Dissidents. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
Open source URL - [2]Stealth Falcon
(Citation: Citizen Lab Stealth Falcon May 2016)
- [3]mitre-attackG0038Open source URL
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