ThreatFox: SmartApeSG IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This hypothesis targets the SmartApeSG threat actor by hunting for specific indicators of compromise that signal active reconnaissance or initial access attempts within the environment. Proactively identifying these IOCs in Azure Sentinel allows the SOC to detect and isolate potential intrusions before the adversary can establish persistence or escalate privileges.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: SmartApeSG Total IOCs: 2 IOC Types: url, domain

KQL: Domain Hunt

// Hunt for DNS queries to known malicious domains
// Source: ThreatFox - SmartApeSG
let malicious_domains = dynamic(["hollyarcade.org"]);
DnsEvents
| where Name has_any (malicious_domains)
| project TimeGenerated, Computer, Name, IPAddresses, QueryType
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Url Hunt

// Hunt for access to known malicious URLs
// Source: ThreatFox - SmartApeSG
let malicious_urls = dynamic(["https://hollyarcade.org/tenant/secure-css.js"]);
UrlClickEvents
| where Url has_any (malicious_urls)
| project Timestamp, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType, IsClickedThrough
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

References

• ThreatFox — SmartApeSG

False Positive Guidance

• Scenario: A legacy application or third-party vendor tool (e.g., an older version of a Java-based middleware or a specific ERP plugin) utilizes a known SmartApeSG hash for its local configuration cache or temporary working files during routine data synchronization.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the file path resides within a specific vendor directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\VendorName\Temp\) or where the parent process is a known service executable (e.g., java.exe or vendor_service.exe) and the file extension is .tmp or .cache.

• Scenario: An automated backup or archival job (e.g., Veeam, Commvault, or a custom PowerShell script) copies a known SmartApeSG artifact from a source server to a backup repository or staging area, triggering the IOCs on the destination host.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the file is located in a designated backup path (e.g., \\BackupServer\Share\) or where the parent process is a backup agent executable (e.g., vscan.exe, commvault_agent.exe) and the file is being written to a network share or disk with a read-only attribute.

• Scenario: A developer or QA engineer is testing a new feature that integrates with a library or component known to have a SmartApeSG signature (perhaps due to a shared dependency or a test fixture) on a non-production development workstation.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts for hosts tagged as “Dev” or “QA” in the CMDB, or exclude if the user account belongs to the “Developers” security group and the file is located within a user-specific project directory (e.g., C:\Users\<dev_user>\Projects\).

• Scenario: A security team is performing a controlled test or validation of the