This hypothesis detects adversary behavior involving the deployment of GCleaner indicators, which often signal post-compromise cleanup or lateral movement activities within the network. A SOC team should proactively hunt for these IOCs in Azure Sentinel to identify potential threat persistence and validate the effectiveness of existing security controls against known malicious signatures.
Malware Family: GCleaner Total IOCs: 3 IOC Types: sha256_hash, md5_hash, sha1_hash
| Type | Value | Threat Type | First Seen | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| md5_hash | 8498ec75a9609ce1d1a27138fccf246a | payload | 2026-07-25 | 95% |
| sha1_hash | 0bc36272c7b85c9b61ea7774a9aade9c6da49d4b | payload | 2026-07-25 | 95% |
| sha256_hash | e2ade9d3303ff03e5e73c8d90da926e3c2390aa3698924d2397c692138c9a141 | payload | 2026-07-25 | 95% |
// Hunt for files matching known malicious hashes
// Source: ThreatFox - GCleaner
let malicious_hashes = dynamic(["8498ec75a9609ce1d1a27138fccf246a", "0bc36272c7b85c9b61ea7774a9aade9c6da49d4b", "e2ade9d3303ff03e5e73c8d90da926e3c2390aa3698924d2397c692138c9a141"]);
DeviceFileEvents
| where SHA256 in (malicious_hashes) or SHA1 in (malicious_hashes) or MD5 in (malicious_hashes)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, FileName, FolderPath, SHA256, InitiatingProcessFileName
| order by Timestamp desc
| Sentinel Table | Notes |
|---|---|
DeviceFileEvents | Ensure this data connector is enabled |
Here are specific false positive scenarios and corresponding exclusion strategies for the ThreatFox: GCleaner IOCs detection rule in an enterprise environment:
Scenario: Scheduled System Maintenance via Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) or SCCM.
Time > 01:00 AND Time < 04:00). Additionally, exclude hosts belonging to the “IT-Operations” Active Directory group or Intune device tag.Scenario: Legitimate Deployment of GCleaner by the Security Engineering Team via Ansible Automation.
Process_Name and User_Account. Configure the rule to ignore alerts where the initiating user is a service account (e.g., svc-ansible-deploy) or where the process command line contains specific flags indicating an automated deployment (e.g., /silent /deploy).Scenario: Manual Cleanup by Desktop Support Administrators on High-Traffic Workstations.