Notorious Iranian Hackers Have Been Targeting the Space Industry With a New Backdoor

The Iranian government-backed hacking group known as APT 33 has been active for more than 10 years, conducting aggressive espionage operations against a diverse array of public and private sector victims around the world, including critical infrastructure targets. And while the group is particularly known for strategic but technically simple attacks like “password spraying,” it has also dabbled in developing more sophisticated hacking tools, including potentially destructive malware tailored to disrupt industrial control systems. Now, findings from Microsoft released on Wednesday indicate that the group is continuing to evolve its techniques with a new multistage backdoor.