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Equation Group Malware - suspicious string found in sample

yara HIGH Yara-Rules
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This rule was pulled from an open-source repository and enriched with AI. Validate in a test environment before deploying to production.
View original rule at Yara-Rules →
Retrieved: 2026-05-23T23:00:00Z · Confidence: medium

Hunt Hypothesis

The detection identifies potential Equation Group malware activity through the presence of a suspicious string, which is a hallmark of advanced persistent threat actors. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to uncover stealthy, long-term compromise attempts that may evade traditional detection methods.

YARA Rule

rule Equation_Kaspersky_SuspiciousString 
{
  
    meta:
        description = "Equation Group Malware - suspicious string found in sample"
        author = "Florian Roth"
        reference = "http://goo.gl/ivt8EW"
        date = "2015/02/17"
        score = 60
   
    strings:
        $mz = { 4d 5a }
        $s1 = "i386\\DesertWinterDriver.pdb" fullword
        $s2 = "Performing UR-specific post-install..."
        $s3 = "Timeout waiting for the \"canInstallNow\" event from the implant-specific EXE!"
        $s4 = "STRAITSHOOTER30.exe"
        $s5 = "standalonegrok_2.1.1.1"
        $s6 = "c:\\users\\rmgree5\\"
    
    condition:
        ( $mz at 0 ) and filesize < 500000 and all of ($s*)
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

This rule contains 7 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

Original source: https://github.com/Yara-Rules/rules/blob/main/malware/APT_Equation.yar