SYMBOLCOMMON_NAMEaka. SYNONYMS

Fox Kitten  (Back to overview)

aka: Lemon Sandstorm, PARISITE, PIONEER KITTEN, PioneerKitten, RUBIDIUM, UNC757

PIONEER KITTEN is an Iran-based adversary that has been active since at least 2017 and has a suspected nexus to the Iranian government. This adversary appears to be primarily focused on gaining and maintaining access to entities possessing sensitive information of likely intelligence interest to the Iranian government. According to DRAGOS, they also targeted ICS-related entities using known VPN vulnerabilities. They are widely known to use open source penetration testing tools for reconnaissance and to establish encrypted communications.

Associated Families

There are currently no families associated with this actor.

References
2020-09-15 ⋅ US-CERT ⋅ US-CERT
Alert (AA20-259A): Iran-Based Threat Actor Exploits VPN Vulnerabilities
CHINACHOPPER Fox Kitten
2020-09-01 ⋅ ZDNet ⋅ Catalin Cimpanu
Iranian hackers are selling access to compromised companies on an underground forum
Fox Kitten
2020-08-31 ⋅ CrowdStrike ⋅ Alex Orleans
Who Is PIONEER KITTEN?
Fox Kitten
2020-08-10 ⋅ ZDNet ⋅ Catalin Cimpanu
FBI says an Iranian hacking group is attacking F5 networking devices
SSHNET Fox Kitten
2020-02-24 ⋅ Dragos ⋅ Dragos
2019 Year In Review: The ICS Landscape and Threat Actviity Groups
Fox Kitten
2020-02-16 ⋅ ClearSky ⋅ ClearSky Research Team
Fox Kitten Campaign: Widespread Iranian Espionage-Offensive Campaign
SSHNET Fox Kitten
2020-01-17 ⋅ FireEye ⋅ FireEye
State of the Hack: Spotlight Iran - from Cain & Abel to full SANDSPY
QUADAGENT Fox Kitten
2020-01-09 ⋅ Dragos ⋅ Dragos
PARISITE
Fox Kitten
2020-01-01 ⋅ Dragos ⋅ Dragos
North American Electric Cyber Threat Perspective
Fox Kitten
Credits: MISP Project