Loading threat actor…
Cobalt Sapling is an Iranian-linked threat cluster associated with the hacktivist personas Moses Staff and Abraham’s Ax. It is assessed to function as a proxy or plausibly deniable front aligned with Iranian geopolitical interests, presenting itself publicly as a pro-Palestinian hacktivist operation while conducting disruptive and data-theft activity against Israeli targets. Reporting has described Moses Staff and Abraham’s Ax as maintaining separate online presences but sharing operational characteristics such as iconography, content editing patterns, and infrastructure-management practices, supporting their treatment as parts of a single cluster. The group has been linked to ransomware use in attacks and is part of a broader set of Iranian actors that blend hacktivist branding with state-aligned objectives. Its known targeting includes Israeli businesses and government entities. Activity attributed to the cluster has emphasized disruption, data theft, and politically themed operations rather than purely criminal monetization. In the broader regional context, Cobalt Sapling fits a pattern in which Iranian operators or proxies use public personas to obscure sponsorship, shape narratives, and provide plausible deniability. Known aliases and associated personas include Moses Staff and Abraham’s Ax.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
1 distinct technique observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
3 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Referenced as another Iranian threat group that has used ransomware, primarily for disruption and harassment rather than revenue generation.
Iran-aligned proxy cluster using hacktivist personas for anti-Israel disruptive, destructive, and data-theft operations, including propaganda leaks and ransomware-like activity without financial motivation.
Iranian threat activity operating under a hacktivist persona to harass/disrupt Israeli businesses and government entities.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.