Hive Pro Brings Frontline Iranian Cyber Threat Intelligence to RSA Conference 2026, Championing the Power of Community

HiveForce Labs releases critical findings on the most significant cyber-kinetic conflict in history

CA, UNITED STATES, March 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Hive Pro Inc., the pioneering vendor of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), opens RSA Conference 2026 with the release of a landmark threat intelligence report from its in-house research division, HiveForce Labs: "Middle East at War:The Rapidly Escalating Iranian Cyber Threat." The report documents the most consequential hybrid cyber-kinetic escalation ever observed and delivers actionable guidance for defenders across critical infrastructure, energy, financial services, government, and telecommunications sectors worldwide.

In the spirit of RSAC 2026's theme, The Power of Community, Hive Pro is making this intelligence freely available to defenders everywhere.

The Threat Landscape Has Permanently Changed
The joint U.S.-Israeli military offensive ‘Operation Epic Fury’ and ‘Operation Roaring Lion’ triggered an unprecedented Iranian cyber counteroffensive, coordinated through a newly established "Electronic Operations Room," simultaneously targeting critical infrastructure across Israel, the United States, Jordan, and Gulf Cooperation Council member states. Key HiveForce Labs findings include:

1. AI-Assisted Malware: MuddyWater's Operation Olalampo introduced three new malware families — GhostFetch, CHAR, and HTTP_VIP — with CHAR showing evidence of LLM-assisted development, marking one of the first confirmed instances of AI-aided tooling by a state-sponsored Iranian actor.

2. Destructionware: The Sicarii ransomware deliberately discards its own encryption keys post-execution, making recovery impossible even upon ransom payment - a strategic shift toward permanent data destruction as a weapon of war.

3. Weaponized Safety Tools: Iranian actors distributed a malicious replica of the Israeli emergency alert app RedAlert via SMS, harvesting call logs, contacts, and personal data from civilians during active missile strikes.

4. VPN Edge Exploitation: A critical Fortinet FortiCloud SSO authentication bypass (CVE-2026-24858, CVSS 9.8) is being actively leveraged for persistent administrative access across enterprise networks.

From Vulnerability Management to Exposure Management: An industry defining moment
The Iranian cyber campaign is a stark and urgent demonstration of why traditional Vulnerability Management (VM) is no longer sufficient. The shift from Vulnerability Management to Exposure Management means understanding not just what is broken, but what is reachable, exploitable, and actively being targeted by real adversaries - right now. It means continuously validating whether security controls actually stop an attack, not just assuming they do.

"Iranian state actors have crossed a threshold - they are now using LLMs to accelerate malware development and scale psychological operations simultaneously. The 'Great Convergence' of kinetic and cyber strikes was not a surprise to us; our teams had been tracking the precursor telemetry for weeks. This is exactly why exposure management cannot be reactive. You cannot wait for a breach to understand where you are vulnerable, says Sarfaraz Kazi, CTO and Head of HiveForce Labs at Hive Pro

"The Power of Community is not just an RSAC theme - it is the operating principle behind everything HiveForce Labs and Hive Pro produce. Threat intelligence is only powerful when it moves fast enough to be useful and reaches every defender, not just the largest organizations. That is why we publish our intelligence openly, and why Hive Pro is designed to correlate advisories with internal vulnerabilities to translate intelligence into immediate, prioritized findings and action for any security team, regardless of size.", says Dan Schoenbaum, CMO at Hive Pro.

In keeping with that commitment, Dan hosts "Fix the Risk"- a weekly live threat briefing series Live on LinkedIn. The latest episode focused on Iranian threat actors and the escalating cyber-kinetic conflict.

Immediate Actions for Defenders

1. FortiCloud SSO: Disable administrative login via FortiCloud SSO and audit for unauthorized local accounts (e.g., audit, backup, secadmin, remoteadmin).

2. OT/ICS Hardening: Change default credentials on Unitronics PLCs and HMIs; segment OT networks from corporate IT environments.

3. Immutable Backups: Maintain at least one offline or immutable backup copy — Sicarii's key-destruction mechanism means ransom payment will not restore data.

4. IOC Integration: Immediately ingest the full indicator matrix from the HiveForce Labs report into SIEM, EDR, and firewall rule sets.

As boards and business leaders demand clarity on their organizations' exposure to Iranian threat actors, Hive Pro is stepping up with a direct commitment to the global security community. For a limited time, Hive Pro is offering a complimentary Exposure Assessment Report against Iranian threat actors.

To claim your free Iranian Threat Exposure Assessment, visit hivepro.com/iran-exposure-assessment

The full report of Iranian Threat Landscape, including a complete IOC matrix and MITRE ATT&CK mappings, is available at hivepro.com/iran-conflict-report.

About Hive Pro
Hive Pro is the pioneering vendor of Continuous Threat Exposure Management, headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. Hive Pro is the industry's only end-to-end implementation of the Gartner-defined CTEM framework- scoping, discovering, prioritizing, validating, and mobilizing against critical exposures in a single platform, powered by the real-time intelligence of HiveForce Labs. Hive Pro is a 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant recognized vendor in the Exposure Assessment Platform category.


© 2026 Hive Pro Inc. All rights reserved.

Dan Schoenbaum
Hive Pro
dan@hivepro.com

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