Detects Sofacy Malware mentioned in PaloAltoNetworks APT report

Hunt Hypothesis

Sofacy malware is being executed in the environment, leveraging techniques associated with the PaloAltoNetworks APT group to establish persistence and exfiltrate data. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior to identify and mitigate advanced persistent threats before significant data loss or network compromise occurs.

YARA Rule

rule Sofacy_Jun16_Sample2  
{

    meta:
        description = "Detects Sofacy Malware mentioned in PaloAltoNetworks APT report"
        author = "Florian Roth"
        reference = "http://goo.gl/mzAa97"
        date = "2016-06-14"
        score = 85
        hash1 = "57d230ddaf92e2d0504e5bb12abf52062114fb8980c5ecc413116b1d6ffedf1b"
        hash2 = "69940a20ab9abb31a03fcefe6de92a16ed474bbdff3288498851afc12a834261"
        hash3 = "aeeab3272a2ed2157ebf67f74c00fafc787a2b9bbaa17a03be1e23d4cb273632"
 
    strings:
        $x1 = "DGMNOEP" fullword ascii
        $x2 = "/%s%s%s/?%s=" fullword ascii
        $s1 = "Control Panel\\Dehttps=https://%snetwork.proxy.ht2" fullword ascii
        $s2 = "http=http://%s:%Control Panel\\Denetwork.proxy.ht&ol1mS9" fullword ascii
        $s3 = "svchost.dll" fullword wide
        $s4 = "clconfig.dll" fullword wide
    
    condition:
        ( uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and filesize < 100KB and ( all of ($x*) ) ) or ( 3 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 6 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

• http://goo.gl/mzAa97
• Source Rule

False Positive Guidance

• Scenario: A system administrator is running a scheduled backup job using Veeam Backup & Replication that temporarily executes a script containing a known Sofacy-related string.
  Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes associated with veeambackup.exe or any process with the command line containing backup or schedule.

• Scenario: A security analyst is manually analyzing a suspicious file using Wireshark and the tool’s internal parser includes a string that matches a Sofacy indicator.
  Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes associated with wireshark.exe or any process with the command line containing analyze or packet capture.

• Scenario: A database administrator is executing a SQL Server Agent Job that includes a query with a string resembling Sofacy TTPs (e.g., xp_cmdshell usage).
  Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes associated with sqlservr.exe or any process with the command line containing SQLAgent or job.

• Scenario: A DevOps engineer is deploying a containerized application using Docker and the Dockerfile includes a comment or instruction that matches a Sofacy-related keyword.
  Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes associated with dockerd.exe or any process with the command line containing build or dockerfile.

• Scenario: A system update task using Windows Update or Group Policy applies a script that contains a Sofacy-related string due to a misconfigured or outdated script.
  Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes associated with wuauclt.exe, gpupdate.exe, or any process with the command line containing update or policy.