G0079: DarkHydrus
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]
Security context for executives and security teams
G0079: DarkHydrus describes [DarkHydrus](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0079) 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. (Citation: Unit 42 DarkHydrus July 2018) (Citation: Unit 42 Playbook Dec 2017)
Executive priority
G0079: DarkHydrus 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 G0079: DarkHydrus 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 G0079: DarkHydrus 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.
DarkHydrus
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]
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 | T1204.002 | Malicious FileSub-technique | 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] |
| Enterprise | T1187 | Forced Authentication | DarkHydrus used Template Injection to launch an authentication window for users to enter their credentials.CitationUnit 42 Phishery Aug 2018 |
| Enterprise | T1564.003 | Hidden WindowSub-technique | DarkHydrus has used |
| Enterprise | T1059.001 | PowerShellSub-technique | DarkHydrus leveraged PowerShell to download and execute additional scripts for execution.[1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1566.001 | Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique | 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]CitationUnit 42 Phishery Aug 2018[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 enable Forced Authentication.CitationUnit 42 Phishery Aug 2018 |
| Enterprise | T1588.002 | ToolSub-technique | DarkHydrus has obtained and used tools such as Mimikatz, Empire, and Cobalt Strike.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0002: Mimikatz
S0270: RogueRobin
RogueRobin is a payload used by DarkHydrus that has been developed in PowerShell and C#. [1][2]
S0154: Cobalt Strike
Cobalt Strike is a commercial, full-featured, remote access tool that bills itself as “adversary simulation software designed to execute targeted attacks and emulate the post-exploitation actions of advanced threat actors”. Cobalt Strike’s interactive post-exploit capabilities cover the full range of ATT&CK tactics, all executed within a single, integrated system.[1]
In addition to its own capabilities, Cobalt Strike leverages the capabilities of other well-known tools such as Metasploit and Mimikatz.[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 | 1.3 | Current bundle | eaeaf1c8a7e1… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.3 | Older bundle | 79d82eaf46ba… |
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]Unit 42 DarkHydrus July 2018
Falcone, R., et al. (2018, July 27). New Threat Actor Group DarkHydrus Targets Middle East Government. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
Open source URL - [2]Unit 42 Playbook Dec 2017
Unit 42. (2017, December 15). Unit 42 Playbook Viewer. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
Open source URL - [3]DarkHydrus
(Citation: Unit 42 DarkHydrus July 2018)
- [4]mitre-attackG0079Open source URL
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