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Threat actor

ProjectSauron

Last fetched

ProjectSauron is a threat actor tracked in WhisperGraph's MITRE ATT&CK corpus, observed using 3 techniques and also known as 4 other names.

Also known as

Strider, Sauron, Project Sauron, G0041

Description

ProjectSauron is the name for a top level modular cyber-espionage platform, designed to enable and manage long-term campaigns through stealthy survival mechanisms coupled with multiple exfiltration methods. Technical details show how attackers learned from other extremely advanced actors in order to avoid repeating their mistakes. As such, all artifacts are customized per given target, reducing their value as indicators of compromise for any other victim. Usually APT campaigns have a geographical nexus, aimed at extracting information within a specific region or from a given industry. That usually results in several infections in countries within that region, or in the targeted industry around the world. Interestingly, ProjectSauron seems to be dedicated to just a couple of countries, focused on collecting high value intelligence by compromising almost all key entities it could possibly reach within the target area. The name, ProjectSauron reflects the fact that the code authors refer to ‘Sauron’ in the Lua scripts.

Techniques by tactic

Command and Control

Credential Access

Defense Impairment

Persistence

Stealth

Attributed infrastructure

None published. WhisperGraph carries no ATTRIBUTED_TO edge to ProjectSauron today — this states the absence of a published link, not that ProjectSauron has no infrastructure.

References

© The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation.

Related pages

Pivot from ProjectSauron into its techniques, tactics and any attributed infrastructure.

Queries

Resolves the slug to this actor, merging every duplicate node sharing the same name.


MATCH (a:ACTOR)
WHERE a.name =~ $pattern OR any(x IN a.aliases WHERE x =~ $pattern)
RETURN a.id AS id, a.name AS name, a.aliases AS aliases, a.description AS description,
       a.references AS references, a.campaigns AS campaigns
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

Techniques this actor uses, grouped by the tactic each one serves.


MATCH (a:ACTOR {name: $name})-[:USES_TECHNIQUE]->(t:ATTACK_PATTERN)
OPTIONAL MATCH (t)-[:USES_TACTIC]->(tac:ATTACK_PATTERN)
RETURN t.id AS techniqueId, t.name AS techniqueName, tac.id AS tacticId, tac.name AS tacticName
LIMIT 1000
Run yourself →

Infrastructure publicly attributed to this actor.


MATCH (n)-[:ATTRIBUTED_TO]->(a:ACTOR {name: $name})
RETURN labels(n)[0] AS kind, n.name AS name
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

Or query Whisper from your own LLM workflow via the Whisper MCP server.