PULSE NAME
Tracking Iranian APT Screening Serpens’ 2026 Espionage Campaigns
WHITE Screening Serpens AlienVault 2026-05-22 Modified: 2026-05-25
20
IOCs
MEDIUM VOLUME
Unit 42 researchers identified six new remote access Trojan variants deployed by Iran-nexus APT group Screening Serpens between February and April 2026, coinciding with a regional conflict starting February 28, 2026. The group targeted entities in the U.S., Israel, UAE, and other Middle Eastern locations, primarily focusing on technology sector professionals through highly tailored social engineering using personalized recruitment lures. Two new malware families, MiniUpdate and MiniJunk V2, were discovered featuring advanced techniques including AppDomainManager hijacking that manipulates .NET application initialization to disable security mechanisms. The campaigns demonstrated increased technical capabilities and operational resilience, with each variant using dedicated C2 infrastructure hosted on Azure. The attacks leveraged DLL sideloading, scheduled tasks for persistence, and sophisticated evasion techniques to maintain long-term access for espionage purposes.
Indicators of Compromise (20)
All FileHash-MD5 FileHash-SHA1 FileHash-SHA256 domain
TYPEINDICATORDESCRIPTIONCREATED
FileHash-MD5 628d831989787ee1b4ffee611cb2014b 2026-05-22
FileHash-MD5 810f8e3b88eb05f710c09552941d6f56 2026-05-22
FileHash-MD5 cdbe76cdfdec8f7c09781b2ef0fdb7f4 2026-05-22
FileHash-MD5 edcdba624ddb43c2a1dcf334aa493068 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA1 0997b6c2fdc3af2de118db559c92ef510c60a994 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA1 67f41dc48bfd0c0597295259bd3c0d3c09dfea34 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA1 da11679653ef33952c3dc8d8850e43d7b8ac884a 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 0db36a04d304ad96f9e6f97b531934594cd95a5cea9ff2c9af249201089dc864 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 332ba2f0297dfb1599adecc3e9067893e7cf243aa23aedce4906a4c480574c17 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 38bd137c672bd58d08c4f0502f993a6561e2c3411773d1ae57ee0151a0a9d11d 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 43dc62cef52ebdd69e79f10015b3e13890f26c058325c0ff139c70f8d8eadcfa 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 44f4f7aca7f1d9bfdaf7b3736934cbe19f851a707662f8f0b0c49b383e054250 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 74882085db2088356ed7f72f01e0404a0a98cda88ef56fb15ce74c1f36b26d27 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 8808c794c24367438f183e4be941876f1d3ecd0c8d2eb43b10d2380841d2283b 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 9cf029daca89523d917dafed0568d11d00e45ec96b5b90b4a1f7fd4018c7da84 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 9e4a658e6d831c9e9bdfe11884a75b7c64812ed0a80e8495ddf6b316505acac1 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 b19e06da580cf91691eda066ac9ee4b09c6e5dc26c367af12660fe1f9306eec4 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 bc3b44154518c5794ce639108e7b9c5fecb0c189607a26de1aaed518d890c7ad 2026-05-22
FileHash-SHA256 d4a7e9f107fe40c1a5d0139c6c6e25bf6bf57f61feff090bee28f476bb3cc3c2 2026-05-22
domain business-startup.org 2026-05-22