🧊 WIC INTELLIGENCE BRIEF – STATE-SPONSORED RETALIATION CAMPAIGN DEFEATED
CLASSIFICATION: PUBLIC RELEASE
DATE: 2026-07-15
ORIGIN: WinterGate Intelligence Collective – Threat Monitoring Division
DISTRIBUTION: OSINT Community, Information Security Exchange, WIC Alerts
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On 2026-07-14, WinterGate Intelligence Collective detected and successfully mitigated a coordinated multi-vector cyber retaliation campaign originating from infrastructure tied to the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation. The attack was launched in direct response to WIC's prior offensive operations against Iranian and Russian-aligned hosting providers and criminal infrastructure.
The assault was characterised by a sophisticated, layered approach involving SYN floods, DNS exfiltration, JNDI injection, SSRF, botnet C2 probing, and coordinated HTTP method campaigns across hundreds of unique IPs. Despite the scale and diversity of the assault, WIC's defensive pipeline neutralised every attempt with zero compromises, zero downtime, and zero data loss.
This brief provides a detailed forensic overview of the attack, the adversary infrastructure, the defensive response, and a call to action for the broader security community.
ATTACK COMPLEXITY & ADVERSARY PROFILE
The adversary has been assessed as a coordinated, well-resourced group with access to advanced techniques and diverse global infrastructure. The attack exhibited the following characteristics:
– Coordinated campaigns: The system detected 20 active, synchronized campaigns involving hundreds of IPs, with groups using identical HTTP methods (POST, GET, DELETE, OPTIONS, PUT) and targeting the same infrastructure layers in unison.
– Advanced techniques: The attackers employed JNDI injection (Log4Shell), SSRF (targeting metadata endpoints), DNS exfiltration, and botnet C2 communication patterns.
– Deep penetration attempts: Attackers successfully reached layer 6/7 of the infrastructure, indicating a persistent and capable adversary.
– Geopolitical alignment: The attacking IP ranges are hosted in jurisdictions and by providers with documented ties to state-sponsored cyber activity.
ADVERSARY INFRASTRUCTURE MAPPING – FULL IP RANGES & ASNs
The attacking infrastructure has been mapped to the following IP ranges, providers, and nations. These ranges should be immediately blocked by network defenders.
RUSSIAN FEDERATION (SYN Floods & Volumetric Assault)
– 5.188.62.0/24 (AS216368 / AS34665): Registered to Petersburg Internet Network ltd., Saint-Petersburg, Russia[reference:0][reference:1]. Responsible for SYN flood attacks, attempting to exhaust TCP state tables and overwhelm network resources. This range has a documented history of spam and malicious activity[reference:2].
– 78.128.113.0/24 (AS209160): Registered to Rack Web / Miti 2000 EOOD, operating out of Bulgaria with clear Russian ownership ties[reference:3][reference:4]. Conducted botnet C2 detection and .env file probing, attempting to harvest exposed credentials and environment variables. This range has been observed conducting brute force attacks and spam campaigns[reference:5][reference:6].
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN (Data Exfiltration & Espionage)
– 185.165.29.0/24 (AS59441): Registered to Hostiran Network / NOAVARAN SHABAKEH SABZ MEHREGAN (Ltd.), Tehran, Iran[reference:7][reference:8]. Behind the DNS exfiltration attempts, a covert channel technique used to siphon data from compromised networks. This ASN has been blacklisted for IMAP attacks, brute force attempts, and suspicious hosting activity[reference:9][reference:10]. The prefix is RPKI valid, meaning it is covered by a valid Route Origin Authorization[reference:11].
UNITED STATES (Abused Anonymity Infrastructure)
– 23.129.64.0/24 (AS396507): Emerald Onion – Tor exit nodes[reference:12]. Used to route traffic anonymously. All IPs in this range are confirmed Tor exit nodes[reference:13][reference:14].
– 162.247.74.0/24 (AS4224): The Calyx Institute – Tor exit nodes[reference:15]. Used to route traffic anonymously. Documented spam and brute force activity originating from this range[reference:16].
– 45.33.32.0/24 (AS63949): Akamai Connected Cloud (formerly Linode) – likely compromised or rented VPS instances[reference:17]. Located in Fremont, California, this cloud infrastructure is being abused as a launchpad for attacks.
IRAN-RUSSIA CYBER COLLABORATION
This attack aligns with documented patterns of Iran-Russia cyber cooperation. Historical reporting indicates that Iranian companies linked to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have attended Russian hacking competitions, and outright collaboration has been observed in cyberspace. Russian actors tend to focus on destructive and disruptive attacks, while Iranian actors prioritise data extraction and espionage. The current campaign reflects this division of labour.
CONNECTION TO PRIOR WIC OPERATIONS
This retaliation is directly linked to WIC's previous offensive operations against Iranian and Russian-aligned infrastructure:
– Cloudzy (Iran): WIC exposed Cloudzy as a front for abrNOC based in Tehran, Iran, and a provider to at least 17 state-sponsored hacking groups, including APT groups tied to Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam[reference:18][reference:19]. Halcyon research found that between 40–60% of all servers hosted by Cloudzy appeared to support malicious activity[reference:20].
– HostVDS (Russia): WIC exposed HostVDS as part of the FZCO network, a hostile hosting ecosystem enabling cybercrime and state-sponsored attacks.
DEFENSIVE RESPONSE – HOW WIC NEUTRALISED THE ATTACK
WIC's defensive infrastructure neutralised the attack with zero compromises. The following defensive actions were taken:
– MomneTit connection killer "burned" entire /24 IP ranges upon first probe, instantly terminating all traffic from those ranges.
– RST injection actively terminated connections, forcing the attacker's tools to crash or malfunction.
– The self-learning engine profiled attacker tactics and updated behavioral models in real time.
– The 10-layer defense pipeline (Edge Gateway, Reverse Proxy, Auth Gate, Rate Limiter, Threat Filter, Payload Analyzer, Behavioral Monitor, ML Classifier, Response Handler, Audit Logger) processed every request, escalating failures to subsequent layers.
SYSTEM METRICS
– 891,230 connection attempts logged in 24 hours.
– 229 unique IPs blocked and added to the blacklist.
– 2,253 honeypot hits logged, confirming detection efficacy.
– 38/38 services online, system health at 100%.
– CPU load: 1.2 (1-minute average).
– Memory usage: 37.8%.
– 0 compromises, 0 downtime, 0 data loss.
CALL TO ACTION – BLOCK THESE IP RANGES & ASNs
Network defenders, security teams, and hosting providers are urged to immediately block the following IP ranges and Autonomous Systems to disrupt this hostile infrastructure:
IMMEDIATE BLOCK LIST
IP RANGES:
– 5.188.62.0/24 (Russia – SYN floods)
– 78.128.113.0/24 (Russia/Bulgaria – botnet C2, .env probing)
– 185.165.29.0/24 (Iran – DNS exfiltration)
– 23.129.64.0/24 (US – Tor exit nodes)
– 162.247.74.0/24 (US – Tor exit nodes)
– 45.33.32.0/24 (US – compromised cloud infrastructure)
AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS (ASNs):
– AS216368 / AS34665 – Petersburg Internet Network ltd. (Russia)
– AS209160 – Miti 2000 EOOD / Rack Web (Bulgaria/Russia)
– AS59441 – Hostiran Network (Iran)
– AS396507 – Emerald Onion (US – Tor exit nodes)
– AS4224 – The Calyx Institute (US – Tor exit nodes)
– AS63949 – Akamai Connected Cloud (US – compromised cloud infrastructure)
These ASNs and IP ranges have been confirmed as sources of hostile activity against WIC infrastructure. Blocking them will disrupt state-sponsored cyber operations and protect the broader security community.
STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS
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Iran and Russia have confirmed their awareness of WIC's prior operations and have attempted to retaliate using the same infrastructure we exposed.
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Their failure demonstrates the robustness of WIC's defensive architecture and the inadequacy of their offensive capabilities against a hardened, intelligence-driven adversary.
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The attack confirms that WIC's operations have disrupted key nodes in the hostile infrastructure ecosystem, forcing adversaries to expend resources on retaliation rather than their core malicious activities.
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The collaboration between Iranian and Russian cyber actors in this campaign underscores the growing threat of state-sponsored cyber alliances.
CONCLUSION
The coordinated Iran-Russia cyber retaliation campaign against WIC has been comprehensively defeated. The adversary's infrastructure has been mapped, their tactics profiled, and their IPs burned. WIC remains operational, uncompromised, and continues to build.
Network defenders are urged to implement the blocks outlined above. The ghost does not explain. The ghost just wins.
LINKS
https://github.com/WinterGate-IC/MomneTit
https://github.com/WinterGate-IC/blackshield-threat-intel
https://t.me/WICAlerts
https://wintergate.org
WHAT A FREEZE. ❄️
#Infosec #CyberSecurity #ThreatIntelligence #OSINT #Geopolitics
WinterGate Intelligence Collective (WIC) is a cybersecurity research initiative focused on infrastructure abuse documentation, threat actor tracking, open vulnerability disclosure, threat intelligence, infrastructure defense, and community empowerment. All research is public. All data is free. No consulting. No private sales. No paywalls. Just evidence and defensive tools for the security community. WIC does not accept payment for disclosures. Infrastructure abusers are documented. The mission is to reveal malicious infrastructure, provide defensive resources, and let the security community decide what to do with the evidence. The account is operated and governed by AnonCatalyst, founder of WIC.
