Campaign, May 2021 to Sep 2022.View on attack.mitre.org
HomeLand Justice was a disruptive cyber campaign conducted by Iranian state-affiliated actors against Albanian government networks in July and September 2022. The activity combined ransomware, wiper malware, and data leak operations. Initial access for HomeLand Justice was established as early as May 2021, and threat actors moved laterally, exfiltrated sensitive information, and maintained persistence for approximately 14 months prior to the destructive phase of the operation. Responsibility was claimed by the "HomeLand Justice" front, which framed the campaign as retaliation against the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group with a presence in Albania. Multiple Iran-nexus groups are assessed to have participated in the campaign, including HEXANE who probed victim infrastructure. A second wave of attacks was launched in September 2022 using similar tactics following public attribution of the previous activity to Iran and the severing of diplomatic ties between Iran and Albania.
| Technique | Procedure example |
|---|---|
| T1003.001 LSASS Memory |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors dumped LSASS memory on compromised hosts. |
| T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors primarily used RDP for lateral movement in the victim environment. |
| T1021.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used SMB for lateral movement. |
| T1036.005 Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors renamed ROADSWEEP to GoXML.exe and ZeroCleare to cl.exe. |
| T1041 Exfiltration Over C2 Channel |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used HTTP to transfer data from compromised Exchange servers. |
| T1046 Network Service Discovery |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors executed the Advanced Port Scanner tool on compromised systems. |
| T1047 Windows Management Instrumentation |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used WMI to modify Windows Defender settings. |
| T1059.001 PowerShell |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used PowerShell cmdlets New-MailboxSearch and Get-Recipient for discovery. |
| T1059.003 Windows Command Shell |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used Windows batch files for persistence and execution. |
| T1078 Valid Accounts |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used a compromised Exchange account to search mailboxes and create new Exchange accounts. |
| T1078.001 Default Accounts |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used the built-in administrator account to move laterally using RDP and Impacket. |
| T1087.003 Email Account |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used compromised Exchange accounts to search mailboxes for administrator accounts. |
| T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors added the `ApplicationImpersonation` management role to accounts under their control to impersonate users and take ownership of targeted mailboxes. |
| T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors used web shells to download files to compromised infrastructure. |
| T1114.002 Remote Email Collection |
During HomeLand Justice, threat actors made multiple HTTP POST requests to the Exchange servers of the victim organization to transfer data. |
Data from MITRE ATT&CK® (Enterprise). ATT&CK® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.
