← Back to SOC feed Coverage →

Molerats certs

yara LOW Yara-Rules
backdoorcommunity
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: 2026-05-29T11:00:00Z · Confidence: medium

Hunt Hypothesis

The Molerats_certs rule detects potential malware artifacts associated with the Molerat family by identifying suspicious certificate patterns that may indicate compromise. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to identify early-stage malware activity and prevent lateral movement within the network.

YARA Rule

rule Molerats_certs
{
    
    meta:
        Author      = "FireEye Labs"
        Date        = "2013/08/23"
        Description = "this rule detections code signed with certificates used by the Molerats actor"
        Reference   = "https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2013/08/operation-molerats-middle-east-cyber-attacks-using-poison-ivy.html"

    strings:
        $cert1 = { 06 50 11 A5 BC BF 83 C0 93 28 16 5E 7E 85 27 75 }
        $cert2 = { 03 e1 e1 aa a5 bc a1 9f ba 8c 42 05 8b 4a bf 28 }
        $cert3 = { 0c c0 35 9c 9c 3c da 00 d7 e9 da 2d c6 ba 7b 6d }

    condition:
        1 of ($cert*)
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

This rule contains 3 string patterns in its detection logic.

False Positive Guidance

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