CORESHELL/SOURFACE Implant by APT28

Hunt Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that the detection identifies potential APT28 activity involving the CORESHELL/SOURFACE implant, which is a sophisticated tool used for long-term persistence and command and control. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to identify and mitigate advanced persistent threats before they cause significant damage.

YARA Rule

rule IMPLANT_2_v9 {
   meta:
      description = "CORESHELL/SOURFACE Implant by APT28"
      author = "US CERT"
      reference = "https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2017/02/10/Enhanced-Analysis-GRIZZLY-STEPPE"
      date = "2017-02-10"
      score = 85
   strings:
      $STR1 = { 8A C3 02 C0 02 D8 8B 45 F8 02 DB 83 C1 02 03 45 08 88 5D 0F 89
         45 E8 8B FF 0F B6 5C 0E FE 8B 45 F8 03 C1 0F AF D8 8D 51 01 89 55 F4
         33 D2 BF 06 00 00 00 8D 41 FF F7 F7 8B 45 F4 C1 EB 07 32 1C 32 33 D2
         F7 F7 8A C1 02 45 0F 2C 02 32 04 32 33 D2 88 45 FF 8B C1 8B F7 F7 F6
         8A 45 FF 8B 75 14 22 04 32 02 D8 8B 45 E8 30 1C 08 8B 4D F4 8D 51 FE
         3B D7 72 A4 8B 45 E4 8B 7D E0 8B 5D F0 83 45 F8 06 43 89 5D F0 3B D8
         0F 82 ?? ?? ?? ?? 3B DF 75 13 8D 04 7F 8B 7D 10 03 C0 2B F8 EB 09 33
         C9 E9 5B FF FF FF 33 FF 3B 7D EC 0F 83 ?? ?? ?? ?? 8B 55 08 8A CB 02
         C9 8D 04 19 02 C0 88 45 13 8D 04 5B 03 C0 8D 54 10 FE 89 45 E0 8D 4F
         02 89 55 E4 EB 09 8D 9B 00 00 00 00 8B 45 E0 0F B6 5C 31 FE 8D 44 01
         FE 0F AF D8 8D 51 01 89 55 0C 33 D2 BF 06 00 00 00 8D 41 FF F7 F7 8B
         45 0C C1 EB 07 32 1C 32 33 D2 F7 F7 8A C1 02 45 13 2C 02 32 04 32 33
         D2 88 45 0B 8B C1 8B F7 F7 F6 8A 45 0B 8B 75 14 22 04 32 02 D8 8B 45
         E4 30 1C 01 8B 4D 0C }
   condition:
      (uint16(0) == 0x5A4D or uint16(0) == 0xCFD0 or uint16(0) == 0xC3D4 or
      uint32(0) == 0x46445025 or uint32(1) == 0x6674725C) and all 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 1 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

Scenario: Legitimate scheduled job running PowerShell scripts for system maintenance
Filter/Exclusion: process.name != "powershell.exe" OR process.parent.name != "schtasks.exe"
Scenario: System administrator using PowerShell to configure network settings via netsh
Filter/Exclusion: process.name != "powershell.exe" OR process.parent.name != "cmd.exe" OR process.command_line NOT LIKE '%netsh%'
Scenario: Security team running a legitimate PowerShell script for log analysis
Filter/Exclusion: process.name != "powershell.exe" OR process.parent.name != "cmd.exe" OR process.command_line LIKE '%log_analysis.ps1%'
Scenario: Admin using taskkill to terminate a process via command line
Filter/Exclusion: process.name != "cmd.exe" OR process.command_line NOT LIKE '%taskkill%'
Scenario: Regular use of certutil to import/export certificates for compliance
Filter/Exclusion: process.name != "certutil.exe" OR process.command_line LIKE '%-importpfx%'