Charming Kitten APT Adversary Simulation
This is a simulation of an attack by the APT group Charming Kitten, targeting multiple sectors including government, military, and critical infrastructure across the Middle East. The group’s targeting has expanded beyond government entities to include the maritime, aviation, and financial sectors, reflecting a growing interest in regional logistics and critical economic infrastructure.
Recent campaigns have targeted entities in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Hungary, Turkmenistan, Israel, and South America. These attacks demonstrate the group’s ability to pivot between sectors while conducting multiple operations simultaneously. The campaign was active throughout 2025 and 2026. This simulation is based on research from Palo Alto Unit 42: https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/boggy-serpens-threat-assessment/
The initial campaign targeted project engineers using industry-specific terminology for subsea pipelines. The lure document was blurred in order to deceive targets into clicking “Enable Content,” thereby triggering the execution of the embedded macro.