Hacking Team Disclosure Sample - file elevator.dll

Hunt Hypothesis

The presence of the elevator.dll file may indicate the use of a known compromised component associated with the Hacking Team disclosure sample, suggesting potential lateral movement or persistence mechanisms. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this file in Azure Sentinel to identify and mitigate potential adversary activity leveraging compromised binaries.

YARA Rule

rule Hackingteam_Elevator_DLL 
{

    meta:
        description = "Hacking Team Disclosure Sample - file elevator.dll"
        author = "Florian Roth"
        reference = "http://t.co/EG0qtVcKLh"
        date = "2015-07-07"
        hash = "b7ec5d36ca702cc9690ac7279fd4fea28d8bd060"
   
    strings:
        $s1 = "\\sysnative\\CI.dll" fullword ascii
        $s2 = "setx TOR_CONTROL_PASSWORD" fullword ascii
        $s3 = "mitmproxy0" fullword ascii
        $s4 = "\\insert_cert.exe" fullword ascii
        $s5 = "elevator.dll" fullword ascii
        $s6 = "CRTDLL.DLL" fullword ascii
        $s7 = "fail adding cert" fullword ascii
        $s8 = "DownloadingFile" fullword ascii
        $s9 = "fail adding cert: %s" fullword ascii
        $s10 = "InternetOpenA fail" fullword ascii
   
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and filesize < 1000KB and 6 of them
}

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 10 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

Scenario: Legitimate Windows Update Process
Description: The elevator.dll file may be part of a legitimate Windows update or system patching process.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for process parentage (parent_process) against known Windows Update services like svchost.exe or wuauserv.exe. Exclude events where the process is initiated by wuauclt.exe or msiexec.exe.
Scenario: Scheduled System Maintenance Task
Description: A scheduled task may use elevator.dll as part of a routine system maintenance or cleanup operation.
Filter/Exclusion: Filter by process_name to exclude tasks initiated by schtasks.exe or taskhost.exe. Include a check for command_line containing known maintenance scripts or paths like C:\Windows\System32\.
Scenario: Microsoft Office Add-in or Plugin
Description: Some Microsoft Office add-ins or plugins may reference elevator.dll as part of their internal operations.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the process is associated with excel.exe, word.exe, or outlook.exe. Check for process_path containing C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\.
Scenario: Antivirus or Endpoint Protection Scan
Description: Antivirus or endpoint protection tools may use elevator.dll during a scan or signature update.
Filter/Exclusion: Filter by process_name to exclude processes like mpsvc.exe, mfev.exe, or avgnt.exe. Check for command_line containing terms like scan, update, or signature.
Scenario: System File Integrity Check (SFIC)
Description: Tools like sfc /scannow or DISM may involve elevator.dll during system