ThreatFox: Astaroth IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt targets the presence of known Astaroth IOCs to identify potential compromise by this high-severity threat actor. Proactively hunting for these indicators in Azure Sentinel allows the SOC to detect early-stage intrusion attempts and mitigate risks before the adversary establishes a foothold or executes further malicious actions.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: Astaroth Total IOCs: 3 IOC Types: domain, url

KQL: Domain Hunt

// Hunt for DNS queries to known malicious domains
// Source: ThreatFox - Astaroth
let malicious_domains = dynamic(["brasilengenhariaecom.store", "vmi3554028.contaboserver"]);
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 - Astaroth
let malicious_urls = dynamic(["https://vmi3554028.contaboserver.net/contador/2mNuEntity.php"]);
UrlClickEvents
| where Url has_any (malicious_urls)
| project Timestamp, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType, IsClickedThrough
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

References

• ThreatFox — Astaroth

False Positive Guidance

• Scenario: A DevOps engineer deploys a new CI/CD pipeline using a container image that includes a legacy build tool or dependency library which shares a specific hash or registry path with one of the Astaroth IOCs.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the source process is docker.exe, kubectl.exe, or helm.exe, and the destination path is within the standard container runtime directories (e.g., C:\ProgramData\docker\ or /var/lib/docker/).
• Scenario: An IT administrator performs a routine patching cycle using a third-party endpoint management agent (e.g., SCCM, Intune, or Jamf) that downloads and executes a temporary installer script matching the IOC’s file name or hash in a standard temp directory.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the parent process is a known endpoint management agent (e.g., CcmExec.exe, IntuneAgent.exe, or jamfHelper) and the file location is under the designated software distribution folder (e.g., C:\Windows\CCM\ or /Library/Application Support/Jamf/).
• Scenario: A security team runs a manual threat hunt or validation test by deploying a canary token or a specific test binary that intentionally matches one of the Astaroth IOCs to verify detection coverage across the environment.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the source user account belongs to the SecurityOps or ThreatHunt security group, or where the file name contains a specific prefix like TH_ (Threat Hunt) or TEST_ in the file path.
• Scenario: A backup solution (e.g., Veeam, Commvault, or Rubrik) restores a file from a backup repository to a temporary staging area, and the restored file’s metadata or hash