Iranian state-sponsored actors attacked Albanian government networks in July 2022, disrupting government websites and public services. But the sources do not identify a malware family called “No-Justice”: they describe a public-facing identity called HomeLand Justice and a wiper identified as cl.exe (Microsoft detection name DoS:Win64/WprJooblash) or as a version of ZeroCleare. HomeLand Justice claimed responsibility; that claim is distinct from investigators’ assessment of who conducted the operation.
What “No-Justice” means in accounts of the Albania attack
“No-Justice” is not an established malware name in the Microsoft, FBI/CISA or MITRE ATT&CK accounts of this incident. The name that appears in those records is HomeLand Justice, the identity used by the people who claimed responsibility. The destructive malware is described separately: Microsoft calls the wiper cl.exe and gives its detection name as DoS:Win64/WprJooblash; the FBI/CISA advisory describes a version of ZeroCleare.
That distinction matters. HomeLand Justice was a public persona, not a conclusively identified single operational group. Microsoft’s September 2022 investigation assessed that multiple Iranian government-sponsored actors handled different phases of the operation. MITRE ATT&CK’s maintained campaign record also associates the campaign with multiple Iran-nexus groups and labels. These are source-specific threat-intelligence mappings, not interchangeable names for one universally agreed group.
Who attacked Albania, and how strong is the Iran link?
Microsoft assessed with high confidence that Iranian government-sponsored actors carried out the destructive attack on July 15, 2022. The FBI and CISA described the operators as Iranian state cyber actors using the HomeLand Justice identity. These assessments concern the operation and its state sponsorship; they do not establish that the public-facing persona itself was a single, named government unit.
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Microsoft’s analysis separates roles among several historic DEV-designated clusters: DEV-0842 deployed ransomware and the wiper; DEV-0861 was involved in initial access and exfiltration; DEV-0166 conducted additional exfiltration; and DEV-0133 probed infrastructure. Microsoft assessed with moderate confidence that actors involved in initial access and exfiltration were linked to EUROPIUM, which Microsoft later renamed Hazel Sandstorm and has publicly linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. That moderate-confidence link applies to those actors, not as a replacement for or an upgrade of the separate high-confidence assessment about the destructive attack.
MITRE’s HomeLand Justice campaign record (C0038) also maps activity to labels including HEXANE and VOID MANTICORE. Those labels reflect MITRE’s campaign and group mappings, while Microsoft’s role breakdown uses its own cluster designations. Microsoft announced in April 2023 that its DEV identifiers map to Storm identifiers; the 2022 DEV labels are retained here to describe the analysis as it was reported.
How the attack unfolded
| Period | Reported activity |
|---|---|
| May 2021 | Microsoft said the actors likely gained access by exploiting an unpatched SharePoint Server vulnerability. The FBI/CISA advisory and MITRE place initial access about 14 months before the destructive phase. |
| 2021 to May 2022 | Actors periodically accessed and exfiltrated email, according to the FBI/CISA advisory; Microsoft also observed email exfiltration during this period. |
| May–June 2022 | The FBI/CISA investigation found lateral movement, reconnaissance and credential harvesting in Albanian government networks. |
| July 15, 2022 | The destructive attack disrupted Albanian government websites and public services. HomeLand Justice claimed responsibility shortly afterward, according to the FBI/CISA advisory. |
| September 2022 | The FBI/CISA advisory reported a further wave using similar tactics and malware. CERT-EU separately reported an incident on September 9 affecting Albanian state police computer systems. |
The approximately 14-month interval is the time between initial access and the destructive phase, as described by the FBI/CISA advisory and MITRE’s campaign record. It is not the duration of the malware’s execution.
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How the intruders got in and prepared the destructive phase
Microsoft said the initial access likely involved exploitation of CVE-2019-0604 on an unpatched SharePoint server. A misconfigured service account with local administrator membership helped fortify the actors’ access. They used web shells for persistence, then carried out credential theft, reconnaissance, defense evasion and lateral movement. Microsoft reported activity involving Mimikatz, Impacket and Remote Desktop; MITRE’s campaign record maps techniques including SharePoint exploitation, web shells, email collection, RDP/SMB lateral movement and credential dumping.
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What the ransomware and wiper did
The destructive phase combined ransomware with disk wiping. Microsoft identified the ransomware binary as GoXml.exe, the wiper as cl.exe (detected as DoS:Win64/WprJooblash) and a driver named rwdsk.sys. The FBI/CISA advisory says operators deployed a version of ZeroCleare after defenders began responding to the ransomware.
Microsoft found that the wiper used an EldoS RawDisk license-key value also associated with ZeroCleare. That is a technical link supporting the description of the malware as ZeroCleare-related; it does not establish that every observed sample was an identical build. The ransomware and wiper had different functions: ransomware was part of the attack’s destructive disruption, while wiping targeted data on disks rather than merely holding it for payment.
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What is known about the damage and the September wave
Microsoft reported less than 10% total impact in the customer environment it investigated. That figure is limited to that environment; it is not an estimate of the proportion of Albanian government systems affected or a national damage measure. The sources cited here do not establish a broader, independently quantified statistic for the attack’s total impact across Albania.
The September 2022 activity belongs to the broader HomeLand Justice campaign record, but the available accounts describe it as a further wave rather than as proof that every later incident had the same target or operational details. The FBI/CISA advisory says the wave used similar tactics and malware, and CERT-EU records the September 9 effect on state police computer systems.
Quick Recap
Sources and scope
- Microsoft Threat Intelligence, “Microsoft investigates Iranian attacks against the Albanian government,” published September 8, 2022, with an April 2023 taxonomy update. This is the primary technical incident investigation cited for the attack chain, malware and attribution assessments.
- FBI and CISA, “Joint Cybersecurity Advisory: Iranian State Actors Conduct Cyber Operations Against the Government of Albania,” September 21, 2022, reproduced by the American Hospital Association. It describes the investigation, prolonged access and September follow-on wave.
- MITRE ATT&CK, “HomeLand Justice, Campaign C0038,” a maintained campaign record created August 6, 2024, version 1.1, last modified July 31, 2026. Its campaign and technique mappings are a maintained knowledge-base synthesis, not a contemporaneous 2022 incident report.
- CERT-EU, “Cyber Brief – September 2022,” released October 3, 2022, for the September 9 state police incident.
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