PowerLess

MITRE ATT&CK: S1012 View on attack.mitre.org

Aliases: PowerLess

First seen
2022-01-01 00:00:00
Malware type
backdoor
Family
Malware family
Operating systems
windows
Profile updated
2026-07-07 15:29:30

Targeted industries: government-and-public-sector energy-and-utilities technology-and-telecommunications

Targeted regions: country_code:ir country_code:sa

Context

PowerLess is a PowerShell-based modular backdoor that has been used by Magic Hound since at least 2022.

Detection coverage

  • 1 YARA rules
  • 292 Sigma rules

Malware & tools used

  • Keylogging (attack-pattern)
  • Browser Information Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Ingress Tool Transfer (attack-pattern)
  • Data from Local System (attack-pattern)
  • Encrypted Channel (attack-pattern)
  • Local Data Staging (attack-pattern)
  • Archive Collected Data (attack-pattern)
  • PowerShell (attack-pattern)
  • Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information (attack-pattern)

Used by threat actors

Detection rules

  • VOLEXITY_Apt_Malware_Ps1_Powerless_B (yara-rule)

Reports & references

  • MITRE ATT&CK — S1012 (report)
  • cybereason.com — Powerless Trojan Iranian Apt Phosphorus Adds New Powershell Backdoor For Espionage (report)

External references