G1009: Moses Staff
Moses Staff is a suspected Iranian threat group that has primarily targeted Israeli companies since at least September 2021. Moses Staff openly stated their motivation in attacking Israeli companies is to cause damage by leaking stolen sensitive data and encrypting the victim's networks without a ransom demand.[1]
Security researchers assess Moses Staff is politically motivated, and has targeted government, finance, travel, energy, manufacturing, and utility companies outside of Israel as well, including those in Italy, India, Germany, Chile, Turkey, the UAE, and the US.[2]
Security context for executives and security teams
G1009: Moses Staff describes [Moses Staff](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1009) is a suspected Iranian threat group that has primarily targeted Israeli companies since at least September 2021. [Moses Staff](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1009) openly stated their motivation in attacking Israeli companies is to cause damage by leaking stolen sensitive data and encrypting the victim's networks without a ransom demand.(Citation: Checkpoint MosesStaff Nov 2021) Security researchers assess [Moses Staff](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1009) is...
Executive priority
G1009: Moses Staff 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 G1009: Moses Staff 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 G1009: Moses Staff 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.
Moses Staff
Moses Staff is a suspected Iranian threat group that has primarily targeted Israeli companies since at least September 2021. Moses Staff openly stated their motivation in attacking Israeli companies is to cause damage by leaking stolen sensitive data and encrypting the victim's networks without a ransom demand.[1]
Security researchers assess Moses Staff is politically motivated, and has targeted government, finance, travel, energy, manufacturing, and utility companies outside of Israel as well, including those in Italy, India, Germany, Chile, Turkey, the UAE, and the US.[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 | T1021.002 | SMB/Windows Admin SharesSub-technique | Moses Staff has used batch scripts that can enable SMB on a compromised host.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | Moses Staff has collected the domain name of a compromised network.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1087.001 | Local AccountSub-technique | Moses Staff has collected the administrator username from a compromised host.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1686.003 | Windows Host FirewallSub-technique | Moses Staff has used batch scripts that can disable the Windows firewall on specific remote machines.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | Moses Staff collected information about the infected host, including the machine names and OS architecture.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1588.002 | ToolSub-technique | Moses Staff has used the commercial tool DiskCryptor.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1505.003 | Web ShellSub-technique | Moses Staff has dropped a web shell onto a compromised system.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1587.001 | MalwareSub-technique | Moses Staff has built malware, such as DCSrv and PyDCrypt, for targeting victims' machines.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1553.002 | Code SigningSub-technique | Moses Staff has used signed drivers from an open source tool called DiskCryptor to evade detection.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027.013 | Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique | Moses Staff has used obfuscated web shells in their operations.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | Moses Staff has downloaded and installed web shells to following path |
| Enterprise | T1190 | Exploit Public-Facing Application | Moses Staff has exploited known vulnerabilities in public-facing infrastructure such as Microsoft Exchange Servers.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S1032: PyDCrypt
PyDCrypt is malware written in Python designed to deliver DCSrv. It has been used by Moses Staff since at least September 2021, with each sample tailored for its intended victim organization.[1]
S0029: PsExec
S1033: DCSrv
DCSrv is destructive malware that has been used by Moses Staff since at least September 2021. Though DCSrv has ransomware-like capabilities, Moses Staff does not demand ransom or offer a decryption key.[1]
S1034: StrifeWater
StrifeWater is a remote-access tool that has been used by Moses Staff in the initial stages of their attacks since at least November 2021.[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(3)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.0 | 2.0 | Current bundle | 5454ab4ed5a9… | ||
| 19.2 | 2.0 | Older bundle | 5454ab4ed5a9… | ||
| 19.1 | 2.0 | Older bundle | 6e50298fb1ca… |
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]Checkpoint MosesStaff Nov 2021
Checkpoint Research. (2021, November 15). Uncovering MosesStaff techniques: Ideology over Money. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
Open source URL - [2]Cybereason StrifeWater Feb 2022
Cybereason Nocturnus. (2022, February 1). StrifeWater RAT: Iranian APT Moses Staff Adds New Trojan to Ransomware Operations. Retrieved August 15, 2022.
Open source URL - [3]DEV-0500
(Citation: Microsoft Threat Actor Naming July 2023)
- [4]Marigold Sandstorm
(Citation: Microsoft Threat Actor Naming July 2023)
- [5]Microsoft Threat Actor Naming July 2023
Microsoft . (2023, July 12). How Microsoft names threat actors. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
Open source URL - [6]mitre-attackG1009Open source URL
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