Files
mvt/docs/iocs.md
Donncha Ó Cearbhaill c95e6659c6 Add a platform-neutral mvt command
Several MVT commands have nothing to do with the acquisition of one
platform, yet they were reachable only through mvt-ios and mvt-android.
Asking which version is installed or downloading the public indicators
meant picking one of the two platform commands arbitrarily, and each of
those tasks had to be written, documented and maintained twice.

Add a third console script, mvt, hosting the commands which belong to no
platform: version and download-iocs for now, with completion following
in a later commit.

Commands installed in the new mvt.cli_plugins entry-point group are
registered on mvt, and on mvt only, so that a command package chooses
the CLI each of its commands is added to: mvt.ios.cli_plugins for
mvt-ios, mvt.android.cli_plugins for mvt-android and mvt.cli_plugins for
mvt. A command wanted on both platform CLIs is registered in both
platform groups; no group adds a command to every CLI. The
MVT_CUSTOM_COMMANDS variable loads command files and folders into mvt
the way the platform variables already do for mvt-ios and mvt-android.

Run on its own, mvt prints the banner and its help instead of a usage
error. The help text reminds that the forensic analysis of an
acquisition runs through mvt-ios and mvt-android, so that the command
which knows nothing about acquisitions says where they are analysed.

version and download-iocs stay on mvt-ios and mvt-android for now, so
that no documented invocation stops working. They are to be dropped from
the platform CLIs in a later release, once mvt has been available long
enough for the change to be announced.

Unlike mvt-ios and mvt-android, which point at their subpackages, the
console script points at mvt.cli:main and the mvt package re-exports
nothing of it. Importing mvt has to stay cheap and free of side effects:
it is the package plugins import from, and pulling in Click, the CLI and
everything the commands import merely because something imported mvt
would work against that.

While here, give the version command of both platform CLIs the context
settings every other command already has, so that "mvt-ios version -h"
prints its help instead of failing on an unknown option.
2026-08-26 12:43:12 +02:00

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Markdown

# Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
MVT uses [Structured Threat Information Expression (STIX)](https://oasis-open.github.io/cti-documentation/stix/intro.html) files to identify potential traces of compromise.
These indicators of compromise are contained in a file with a particular structure of [JSON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON) with the `.stix2` or `.json` extensions.
You can indicate a path to a STIX2 indicators file when checking iPhone backups or filesystem dumps. For example:
```bash
mvt-ios check-backup --iocs ~/ios/malware.stix2 --output /path/to/iphone/output /path/to/backup
```
Or, with data from an Android backup:
```bash
mvt-android check-backup --iocs ~/iocs/malware.stix2 /path/to/android/backup/
```
After extracting forensics data from a device, you are also able to compare it with any STIX2 file you indicate:
```bash
mvt-ios check-iocs --iocs ~/iocs/malware.stix2 /path/to/iphone/output/
```
The `--iocs` option can be invoked multiple times to let MVT import multiple STIX2 files at once. For example:
```bash
mvt-ios check-backup --iocs ~/iocs/malware1.stix --iocs ~/iocs/malware2.stix2 /path/to/backup
```
It is also possible to load STIX2 files automatically from the environment variable `MVT_STIX2`:
```bash
export MVT_STIX2="/home/user/IOC1.stix2:/home/user/IOC2.stix2"
```
## Network Access
When checking URL indicators, MVT follows recognized shortened URLs with an
HTTP `HEAD` request. URL checks are deduplicated and run concurrently, with at
most 20 requests in progress at a time. Redirects within an individual URL
chain are still followed sequentially. The following environment variables
control these requests:
- `MVT_NETWORK_ACCESS_ALLOWED` enables or disables network requests. It defaults
to `true`. Set it to `false` to prevent MVT from attempting to resolve
shortened URLs.
- `MVT_NETWORK_TIMEOUT` sets the request timeout in seconds. It defaults to
`15`.
For example, to run IOC checks without resolving shortened URLs:
```bash
MVT_NETWORK_ACCESS_ALLOWED=false mvt-ios check-iocs \
--iocs ~/iocs/malware.stix2 /path/to/iphone/output/
```
## STIX2 Support
So far MVT implements only a subset of [STIX2 specifications](https://docs.oasis-open.org/cti/stix/v2.1/csprd01/stix-v2.1-csprd01.html):
* It only supports checks for one value (such as `[domain-name:value='DOMAIN']`) and not boolean expressions over multiple comparisons
* It only supports the following types: `domain-name:value`, `process:name`, `email-addr:value`, `file:name`, `file:path`, `file:hashes.md5`, `file:hashes.sha1`, `file:hashes.sha256`, `app:id`, `configuration-profile:id`, `android-property:name`, `url:value` (but each type will only be checked by a module if it is relevant to the type of data obtained)
## Known repositories of STIX2 IOCs
- The [Amnesty International investigations repository](https://github.com/AmnestyTech/investigations) contains STIX-formatted IOCs for:
- [Pegasus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)) ([STIX2](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AmnestyTech/investigations/master/2021-07-18_nso/pegasus.stix2))
- [Predator from Cytrox](https://citizenlab.ca/2021/12/pegasus-vs-predator-dissidents-doubly-infected-iphone-reveals-cytrox-mercenary-spyware/) ([STIX2](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AmnestyTech/investigations/master/2021-12-16_cytrox/cytrox.stix2))
- [An Android Spyware Campaign Linked to a Mercenary Company](https://github.com/AmnestyTech/investigations/tree/master/2023-03-29_android_campaign) ([STIX2](https://github.com/AmnestyTech/investigations/blob/master/2023-03-29_android_campaign/malware.stix2))
- [This repository](https://github.com/Te-k/stalkerware-indicators) contains IOCs for Android stalkerware including [a STIX MVT-compatible file](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Te-k/stalkerware-indicators/master/generated/stalkerware.stix2).
- We are also maintaining [a list of IOCs](https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt-indicators) in STIX format from public spyware campaigns.
You can automatically download the latest public indicator files with the command `mvt download-iocs`. The per-platform forms `mvt-ios download-iocs` and `mvt-android download-iocs` do the same thing. These commands download the list of indicators from the [mvt-indicators](https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt-indicators/blob/main/indicators.yaml) repository and store them in the [appdir](https://pypi.org/project/appdirs/) folder. They are then loaded automatically by MVT.
Please [open an issue](https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt/issues/) to suggest new sources of STIX-formatted IOCs.