Sima
Sima is an Iran-attributed nation-state APT group with an espionage motive, tracked by Brandefense.
- Origin
- Iran
- Techniques
- 0
- Exploited CVEs
- No CVE data
- First seen
- Jan 1, 2016
- Record updated
About Sima.
Sima is a group of suspected Iranian origin targeting Iranians in diaspora. In February 2016, Iran-focused individuals received messages purporting to be from Human RightsWatch's (HRW) Emergencies Director, requesting that they read an article about Iran pressing Afghanr efugees to fight in Syria. While referencing a real report published by HRW, the links provided for the Director’s biography and article directed the recipient to malware hosted elsewhere. These spear-phishing attempts represent an evolution of Iranian actors based on their social engineering tactics and narrow targeting. Although the messages still had minor grammatical and stylistic errors that would be obvious to a native speaker, the actors demonstrated stronger English-language proficiency than past intrusion sets and a deeper investment in background research prior to the attempt. The actors appropriated a real identity that would be expected to professionally interact with the subject, then offered validation through links to their biography and social media, the former of which itself was malware as well.
Last updated Oct 9, 2026. Compiled by Brandefense technologies from structured threat intelligence and reviewed by Brandefense analysts. Techniques follow the MITRE ATT&CK framework.