Equation Group Malware - TripleFantasy http://goo.gl/ivt8EW

Hunt Hypothesis

The detection identifies potential Equation Group malware activity associated with the TripleFantasy variant, which may indicate advanced persistent threat behavior. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to identify and mitigate early-stage compromise by sophisticated adversaries.

YARA Rule

rule Equation_Kaspersky_TripleFantasy_1
{

    meta:
        description = "Equation Group Malware - TripleFantasy http://goo.gl/ivt8EW"
        author = "Florian Roth"
        reference = "http://goo.gl/ivt8EW"
        date = "2015/02/16"
        hash = "b2b2cd9ca6f5864ef2ac6382b7b6374a9fb2cbe9"

    strings:
        $mz = { 4d 5a }
        $s0 = "%SystemRoot%\\system32\\hnetcfg.dll" fullword wide
        $s1 = "%WINDIR%\\System32\\ahlhcib.dll" fullword wide
        $s2 = "%WINDIR%\\sjyntmv.dat" fullword wide
        $s3 = "Global\\{8c38e4f3-591f-91cf-06a6-67b84d8a0102}" fullword wide
        $s4 = "%WINDIR%\\System32\\owrwbsdi" fullword wide
        $s5 = "Chrome" fullword wide
        $s6 = "StringIndex" fullword ascii
        $x1 = "itemagic.net@443" fullword wide
        $x2 = "team4heat.net@443" fullword wide
        $x5 = "62.216.152.69@443" fullword wide
        $x6 = "84.233.205.37@443" fullword wide
        $z1 = "www.microsoft.com@80" fullword wide
        $z2 = "www.google.com@80" fullword wide
        $z3 = "127.0.0.1:3128" fullword wide

    condition:
        ( $mz at 0 ) and filesize < 300000 and (( all of ($s*) and all of ($z*) ) or ( all of ($s*) and 1 of ($x*) ))
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint — Custom indicators / advanced hunting
Email Gateway — Attachment scanning
File Share Monitoring — Periodic scanning of shared drives
YARA CLI — Manual threat hunting on endpoints

This rule contains 15 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

Scenario: Scheduled System Maintenance Task
Description: A legitimate system maintenance task, such as schtasks.exe running a cleanup job, may exhibit behavior similar to malware.
Filter/Exclusion: Check the command line arguments for schtasks.exe and exclude tasks with known benign names (e.g., Cleanup, DiskDefrag, SystemCheck). Use a filter like:
```
(ProcessName == "schtasks.exe") and (CommandLine contains "Cleanup" or "DiskDefrag")
```
Scenario: Microsoft Windows Update Agent
Description: The Windows Update Agent (wuauserv.exe) may trigger the rule due to its network activity and file operations.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes associated with wuauserv.exe or use a filter based on the process name:
```
(ProcessName == "wuauserv.exe")
```
Scenario: Antivirus or Endpoint Protection Scan
Description: Antivirus tools like Kaspersky, Bitdefender, or Microsoft Defender may perform deep scans that mimic malicious activity.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes related to known security software. Example filter:
```
(ProcessName contains " Defender" or " Kaspersky" or " Bitdefender")
```
Scenario: PowerShell Script for System Configuration
Description: A legitimate PowerShell script used for system configuration (e.g., powershell.exe -Command) may trigger the rule due to its execution patterns.
Filter/Exclusion: Filter by command line arguments or process name. Example:
```
(ProcessName == "powershell.exe") and (CommandLine contains " -Command " or " -File ")
```
**Scenario: Database Backup Job Using