Best Laid Plans: TA453 Targets Religious Figure with Fake Podcast Invite Delivering New BlackSmith Malware Toolset

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External References

• https://www.proofpoint.com/
• https://otx.alienvault.com/

Description

Proofpoint security researchers identified an Iranian threat group known as TA453 targeting a prominent religious figure through a sophisticated social engineering campaign. The threat actors impersonated a legitimate organization and invited the target to participate in a podcast interview. Upon engaging with the malicious links, the campaign attempted to deliver a new malware toolkit called BlackSmith, which included a PowerShell trojan dubbed AnvilEcho by Proofpoint. The malware is designed for intelligence gathering and exfiltration, bundling various capabilities previously observed in separate TA453 malware modules into a single script.

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