Dust Specter Targets Iraqi Officials with New SPLITDROP and GHOSTFORM Malware

thehackernews.com · [email protected] (The Hacker News) · 9 days ago · threat-intel
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AI Summary

Zscaler ThreatLabz identified a campaign by Iran-nexus threat actor Dust Specter targeting Iraqi government officials using spear-phishing impersonation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver two previously undiscovered malware families: SPLITDROP and GHOSTFORM.

Tags
apt iran-nexus malware splitdrop ghostform spear-phishing targeted-attack iraq government-targeting social-engineering zero-day threat-actor
Entities
Dust Specter SPLITDROP GHOSTFORM Zscaler ThreatLabz Iraq Ministry of Foreign Affairs
A suspected Iran-nexus threat actor has been attributed to a campaign targeting government officials in Iraq by impersonating the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver a set of never-before-seen malware. Zscaler ThreatLabz, which observed the activity in January 2026, is tracking the cluster under the name Dust Specter. The attacks, which manifest in the form of two different
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