ThreatFox: Phemedrone Stealer IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

The detection identifies potential Phemedrone Stealer activity through known IOCs, indicating an adversary may be exfiltrating sensitive data from compromised systems. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to detect and mitigate early-stage ransomware attacks before significant data loss occurs.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: Phemedrone Stealer Total IOCs: 3 IOC Types: sha1_hash, sha256_hash, md5_hash

KQL: Hash Hunt

// Hunt for files matching known malicious hashes
// Source: ThreatFox - Phemedrone Stealer
let malicious_hashes = dynamic(["5c193587430fa41ac4ff3ba1ac41abec4f025dd5", "b01231990bfbb7857d28c8e24aa6251b", "9555123bcc8f0720640dc56fa9e17452a3f2224038f2385e292f64df7c70fa8d"]);
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

Required Data Sources

References

• ThreatFox — Phemedrone Stealer

False Positive Guidance

• Scenario: Legitimate System Update via Windows Update
  Description: A system update from Microsoft’s Windows Update service includes a file that matches one of the Phemedrone Stealer IOCs.
  Filter/Exclusion: Check the file source using file.source == "Windows Update" or file.name contains "WindowsUpdate".

• Scenario: Scheduled Job for Log Collection
  Description: A scheduled task running a legitimate log collection tool (e.g., logparser.exe) is flagged because the tool’s binary matches an IOC associated with Phemedrone Stealer.
  Filter/Exclusion: Filter by process name using process.name == "logparser.exe" or check the parent process for known system services.

• Scenario: Admin Task for Malware Analysis
  Description: A security administrator is running a sandboxed analysis of a suspicious file using a tool like Cuckoo Sandbox or Joe Sandbox, which may trigger an IOC match.
  Filter/Exclusion: Filter by process name using process.name contains "cuckoo" or process.name contains "joe", or check the process parent for known sandboxing tools.

• Scenario: Legitimate Third-Party Software Installation
  Description: A legitimate third-party software package (e.g., 7-Zip, WinRAR, or Notepad++) is installed, and one of its components matches an IOC from the Phemedrone Stealer.
  Filter/Exclusion: Filter by file hash or vendor using file.hash == "known_good_hash" or file.vendor == "7-Zip", or check the file’s digital signature.

• Scenario: PowerShell Script for System Monitoring
  Description: A PowerShell script used for system monitoring (e.g., Get-EventLog, Get-WmiObject) is flagged because it uses a command or