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Iran-linked hackers expand infrastructure across Europe and Middle East, report says
Group-IB found Iran-linked Tortoiseshell expanding command-and-control infrastructure into the UK, Belgium, Saudi Arabia and the UAE with new malware tooling.
Group-IB researchers identified new Tortoiseshell command-and-control infrastructure, including servers named 'uk1' and 'uk2' hosted on UK IP addresses, plus systems in Belgium, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Iran-linked espionage group, active since at least 2018 and previously tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has historically targeted defense, aerospace, technology and military organizations in the Middle East and the United States. Researchers also uncovered new malware samples, including a backdoor resembling TwoStroke that enables command execution, file theft and system reconnaissance, and a tool establishing reverse SSH tunnels to attacker-controlled servers. Group-IB assesses that the group is expanding both its geographic reach and its capabilities and ranks it among the most active Iranian APTs of 2026.
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Tortoiseshell Expands Malware Toolset With New Backdoor, SSH Tunnel
Group-IB uncovered new infrastructure linked to the Tortoiseshell threat actor, including an additional backdoor and an SSH tunneling tool.
Group-IB researchers have discovered new Tortoiseshell infrastructure, revealing an expanded backdoor and a purpose-built SSH tunneling utility. Tortoiseshell is known for targeting IT providers and telecom companies, frequently through supply-chain attacks. The expanded toolset suggests the group is investing in stealthy persistence and covert network communications.
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Nimbus Manticore Expands Toolset With TWOSTROKE
Group-IB found new infrastructure and TWOSTROKE-like malware used by IRGC-linked Nimbus Manticore, indicating expanded Middle East and Europe targeting.
Group-IB reported new Tortoiseshell infrastructure spanning Europe and the Middle East and two previously undocumented tools from IRGC-linked Nimbus Manticore (UNC1549): a reverse SSH tunneling utility connecting to 172.86.98.113 on port 443, and a C++ backdoor masquerading as wtsapi32.dll with three hard-coded C2 servers. The backdoor overlaps with TWOSTROKE and supports file transfer, execution, host information gathering, and persistence. Findings build on Kaspersky's report of the NightLedger backdoor and WebSocket tunnelers BridgeHead and ArcBridge, and suggest expanded targeting beyond the Middle East into Europe.
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Risky Bulletin: Two TeamPCP members arrested in Australia
Australian Federal Police arrested two alleged TeamPCP members behind supply-chain worm attacks that stole over 500,000 credentials from compromised open-source libraries.
The AFP arrested alleged TeamPCP leader Ruben Thomson, 21, and Louis Gaebler, 23, near Perth; both were charged and remain in custody. The group inserted a self-spreading credential-stealing worm into open-source projects including Trivy, KICS, LiteLLM, and Telnyx, harvesting more than 500,000 credentials used for network access, ransomware, extortion, and sales. About 78,000 tokens and secrets from nearly 2,200 organizations leaked online last month, and the FBI supported the investigation that began in April.
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