S9037: RustyWater

RustyWater is a Rust-based implant used by MuddyWater. Historically, MuddyWater has used PowerShell-based tools and RustyWater reflects a shift in tooling, demonstrating better techniques for defense evasion and reverse engineering.[1]

EnterpriseS9037MalwareObject v1.0ModifiedMay 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)

S9037: RustyWater describes [RustyWater](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S9037) is a Rust-based implant used by [MuddyWater](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0069). Historically, [MuddyWater](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0069) has used PowerShell-based tools and [RustyWater](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S9037) reflects a shift in tooling, demonstrating better techniques for defense evasion and reverse engineering.(Citation: CloudSEK_RustyWater_Jan2026)

Executive priority

S9037: RustyWater is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. 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 S9037: RustyWater by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

Validate whether S9037: RustyWater 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.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

RustyWater

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

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.

ATT&CK relationship table

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.

Filter related techniques20 rows

Domain	ID	Name	Relationship / procedure
Enterprise	T1684.001	ImpersonationSub-technique	RustyWater has impersonated TMCell (Altyn Asyr CJSC), the primary mobile operator in Turkmenistan, sending phishing emails with the email domain `info@tmcell`.[1]
Enterprise	T1033	System Owner/User Discovery	RustyWater has gathered the victim machine’s username.[1]
Enterprise	T1027.013	Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique	RustyWater has encrypted all strings in the code using position independent XOR encryption.[1]
Enterprise	T1082	System Information Discovery	RustyWater has gathered the victim machine’s computer name.[1]
Enterprise	T1071.001	Web ProtocolsSub-technique	RustyWater has used the Rust request library for HTTP C2 communication.[1]
Enterprise	T1132.001	Standard EncodingSub-technique	RustyWater has encoded collected data with Base64.[1]
Enterprise	T1566.001	Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique	RustyWater has sent spearphishing emails with the attachment Cybersecurity.doc, which served as the primary payload for the next stage.[1]
Enterprise	T1106	Native API	RustyWater has used `CreateObject` to instantiate a WScript.Shell Component Object Model (COM) object.[1]  Additionally, RustyWater has used `VirtualAllocEx` and `WriteProcessMemory` to inject shellcode into explorer.exe.[1]
Enterprise	T1573.001	Symmetric CryptographySub-technique	RustyWater has encrypted encoded data with XOR before sending it to the C2 server.[1]
Enterprise	T1055.002	Portable Executable InjectionSub-technique	RustyWater has injected its shellcode into explorer.exe by allocating memory via `VirtualAllocEx`, then by writing the payload via `WriteProcessMemory`.[1]
Enterprise	T1547.001	Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique	RustyWater has established persistence by adding `C:\ProgramData\CertificationKit.ini` to a Windows startup Registry key or to a Run or RunOnce Registry key.[1]
Enterprise	T1678	Delay Execution	RustyWater has generated random sleep intervals between C2 communication.[1]
Enterprise	T1087.002	Domain AccountSub-technique	RustyWater has gathered the domain membership of the victim machine’s user.[1]
Enterprise	T1027	Obfuscated Files or Information	RustyWater has an obfuscated function (i.e. love_me__()) that dynamically reconstructs the string WScript.Shell using hard-coded ASCII values and the Chr() function.[1]
Enterprise	T1622	Debugger Evasion	RustyWater has registered a Vectored Exception Handler (VEH) to catch debugging efforts.[1]
Enterprise	T1518.001	Security Software DiscoverySub-technique	RustyWater has attempted to detect more than 25 antivirus and EDR tools.[1]
Enterprise	T1559.001	Component Object ModelSub-technique	RustyWater has used a WScript.Shell COM object to execute the CertificationKit.ini file.[1]
Enterprise	T1140	Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information	RustyWater has used the WriteHexToFile function to transform an embedded hex string to the payload CertificationKit.ini.[1]
Enterprise	T1036.005	Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique	RustyWater has used reddit.exe as its file name and a Cloudflare logo.[1]
Enterprise	T1204.002	Malicious FileSub-technique	RustyWater has used a Word document with a malicious Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro; when enabled, the CertificationKit.ini payload is constructed and executed.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

G0069: MuddyWater

MuddyWater is a cyber espionage group assessed to be a subordinate element within Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).[1] Since at least 2017, MuddyWater has targeted a range of government and private organizations across sectors, including telecommunications, local government, finance, defense, and oil and natural gas organizations, in the Middle East (specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia), Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. MuddyWater has reused domains dating back to October 2025, and has a preference for NameCheap and Hosterdaddy Private Limited (AS136557). In late 2025 and early 2026, MuddyWater used commercial satellite internet (i.e., Starlink) for command and control (C2) communication. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

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.

ATT&CK release: 19.2
Object version: 1.0
Created: Apr 21, 2026, 15:00 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Modified: May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Raw hash: b2f1d9afe31be573...

Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)

Release	Bundle imported	Object version	Modified	Status	Raw hash
19.2	Aug 6, 2026, 02:58 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.0	May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Current bundle	`b2f1d9afe31b…`
19.1	Jul 14, 2026, 09:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.0	May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Older bundle	`b2f1d9afe31b…`

Raw source

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.

Open mirrored raw JSON Open MITRE-hosted copy

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

[1]
CloudSEK_RustyWater_Jan2026
Awasthi, P. (2026, January 8). Reborn in Rust: Muddy Water Evolves Tooling with RustyWater Implant. Retrieved March 19, 2026.
Open source URL
[2]
Archer RAT / RUSTRIC
(Citation: CloudSEK_RustyWater_Jan2026)
[3]
mitre-attackS9037
Open source URL

Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.

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