FireEye technology detected and blocked emails sent to its customers. FireEye assesses with high confidence that APT33 works on behalf of the Iranian Government. Since at least 2013 the group has targeted military and commercial organizations in the aviation and energy sectors with the chief goal of intellectual property theft. Malware leveraged by APT33 in previous operations demonstrate destructive capabilities in addition to credential-theft and data exfiltration. Alister Shepherd, Middle East and Africa director for Mandiant at FireEye added, "In July we observed a significant increase in activity from this Iran affiliated APT group. The APT33 operation primarily focused on the energy sector, which has been affected by recent sanctions that were placed on Iran. The motivation behind the operation is uncertain, but it's possible that the attackers were using spear phishing to facilitate the theft of intellectual property or to subsequently cause disruption in retaliation to the sanctions.