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Keywords used by attackers in Operation Cleaver

yara HIGH 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: 2026-05-31T23:00:00Z · Confidence: medium

Hunt Hypothesis

The detection rule identifies potential adversary activity linked to Operation Cleaver by monitoring for specific keywords associated with the attack. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to detect early-stage compromise and mitigate the impact of advanced persistent threats.

YARA Rule

rule OPCLEAVER_ZhoupinExploitCrew
{

    meta:
        description = "Keywords used by attackers in Operation Cleaver"
        reference = "http://cylance.com/assets/Cleaver/Cylance_Operation_Cleaver_Report.pdf"
        date = "2014/12/02"
        author = "Cylance Inc."
        score = "70"

    strings:
        $s1 = "zhoupin exploit crew" nocase
        $s2 = "zhopin exploit crew" nocase

    condition:
        1 of them
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

This rule contains 2 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

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