ThreatFox: VShell IOCs | SOC Hunt Feed

Hunt Hypothesis

This detection rule identifies adversary activity by correlating network and host telemetry against nine specific Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) linked to the VShell threat actor. Proactive hunting for these IOCs within Azure Sentinel is critical because early identification of VShell’s unique signatures enables the SOC team to rapidly isolate compromised assets before lateral movement or data exfiltration occurs.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: VShell Total IOCs: 9 IOC Types: ip:port

Type	Value	Threat Type	First Seen	Confidence
ip:port	`96[.]126[.]179[.]88:443`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`96[.]126[.]179[.]88:10000`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`96[.]126[.]179[.]88:80`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`106[.]38[.]201[.]117:8090`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`18[.]195[.]123[.]92:80`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`192[.]255[.]236[.]156:8084`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`159[.]65[.]11[.]219:8888`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`38[.]147[.]170[.]102:8084`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%
ip:port	`49[.]233[.]13[.]225:8084`	botnet_cc	2026-08-07	100%

KQL: Ip Hunt

// Hunt for network connections to known malicious IPs
// Source: ThreatFox - VShell
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["18.195.123.92", "38.147.170.102", "106.38.201.117", "49.233.13.225", "159.65.11.219", "96.126.179.88", "192.255.236.156"]);
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(["18.195.123.92", "38.147.170.102", "106.38.201.117", "49.233.13.225", "159.65.11.219", "96.126.179.88", "192.255.236.156"]);
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 — VShell

False Positive Guidance

Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: VShell IOCs detection rule, including tailored filters and exclusions suitable for an enterprise environment:

Scenario: Automated Security Scanner Traffic
- Context: Internal vulnerability management tools (e.g., Tenable Nessus, Qualys, or Rapid7 InsightVM) regularly scan the network perimeter. During these scans, the tools often probe ports and services associated with VShell to verify availability and configuration, triggering IOCs related to connection attempts or specific user-agent strings that mimic VShell behavior.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude traffic originating from known scanner IP subnets (e.g., 10.50.20.0/24) where the source process is identified as nessus.exe, qualyspcd.exe, or insightvm-agent. Add a condition to ignore events where the Source Process Name matches these specific scanner executables.
Scenario: Scheduled Backup and Archiving Jobs
- Context: Enterprise backup solutions like Veeam Backup & Replication or Commvault utilize VShell agents for file integrity checks and metadata synchronization. A nightly scheduled job (e.g., running at 02:00 via Windows Task Scheduler) may initiate a connection to the VShell management server, generating IOCs that look like active user sessions or data exfiltration attempts.
- Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion rule based on time windows and process paths. Exclude alerts occurring between 01:30 and 04:30 where the source hostname contains “Backup-” or “Bkp-” prefixes, and the initiating process path is located within \Program Files\Veeam\ or \Commvault\.
Scenario: DevOps CI/CD Pipeline Execution