ThreatFox: PureRAT IOCs | SOC Hunt Feed

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt hypothesis detects adversary behavior involving the deployment of PureRAT remote access trojans by monitoring network and endpoint telemetry for four specific indicators of compromise. A SOC team should proactively hunt for these IOCs in Azure Sentinel to identify early-stage lateral movement and command-and-control communications that often precede data exfiltration or credential theft campaigns.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: PureRAT Total IOCs: 4 IOC Types: ip:port

Type	Value	Threat Type	First Seen	Confidence
ip:port	`65[.]1[.]70[.]222:443`	botnet_cc	2026-08-05	75%
ip:port	`43[.]135[.]26[.]173:443`	botnet_cc	2026-08-05	75%
ip:port	`185[.]174[.]102[.]28:55555`	botnet_cc	2026-08-05	75%
ip:port	`172[.]81[.]132[.]75:443`	botnet_cc	2026-08-05	75%

KQL: Ip Hunt

// Hunt for network connections to known malicious IPs
// Source: ThreatFox - PureRAT
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["172.81.132.75", "65.1.70.222", "43.135.26.173", "185.174.102.28"]);
CommonSecurityLog
| where DestinationIP in (malicious_ips) or SourceIP in (malicious_ips)
| project TimeGenerated, SourceIP, DestinationIP, DestinationPort, DeviceAction, Activity
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Ip Hunt Device

// Hunt in Defender for Endpoint network events
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["172.81.132.75", "65.1.70.222", "43.135.26.173", "185.174.102.28"]);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP in (malicious_ips)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, RemoteIP, RemotePort, InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

Sentinel Table	Notes
`CommonSecurityLog`	Ensure this data connector is enabled
`DeviceNetworkEvents`	Ensure this data connector is enabled

References

ThreatFox — PureRAT

False Positive Guidance

Here are 5 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: PureRAT IOCs detection rule, including suggested filters and exclusions tailored for an enterprise environment:

Scenario: Legitimate RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) agents performing scheduled health checks.
- Context: Tools like Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM) or Ivanti Neurons often initiate outbound connections to their management servers using specific ports or domain names that overlap with PureRAT’s command-and-control (C2) patterns. These agents may download update manifests or upload telemetry data that matches the rule’s IOCs.
- Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Create a whitelist exclusion for traffic originating from known RMM agent processes (e.g., ccmexec.exe, ivanti-agent.exe) connecting to internal management server IP ranges or specific FQDNs (e.g., *.scsmgmt.local).
Scenario: Automated backup and archival jobs utilizing cloud storage.
- Context: Enterprise backup solutions such as Veeam Backup & Replication or Commvault frequently establish persistent connections to cloud repositories (AWS S3, Azure Blob) for incremental backups. The network signatures of these large data transfers can mimic the beaconing behavior and specific URL structures detected by PureRAT IOCs.
- Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the source process is identified as a known backup engine (e.g., VeeamAgent.exe, CommServe.exe) and the destination IP belongs to the organization’s designated cloud storage CIDR blocks or specific S3/Azure endpoints.
Scenario: Software supply chain updates from trusted vendors.
- Context: Critical enterprise applications like Adobe Acrobat, Zoom, or Microsoft Office often run background update services that contact vendor servers for patching. These connections may