URLhaus: connectwise Malicious URLs

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt detects adversary behavior involving connections to malicious URLs associated with ConnectWise, which may indicate compromised endpoints or phishing campaigns leveraging trusted brand identities. A SOC team should proactively hunt for these indicators in Azure Sentinel to identify early-stage lateral movement or data exfiltration attempts that could exploit the legitimacy of the ConnectWise ecosystem before they escalate into broader incidents.

IOC Summary

Threat: connectwise Total URLs: 2 Active URLs: 1

KQL: Url Dns Hunt

// Hunt for DNS resolution of URLhaus malicious domains
// Threat: connectwise
let malicious_domains = dynamic(["172.245.12.92"]);
DnsEvents
| where Name has_any (malicious_domains)
| project TimeGenerated, Computer, Name, IPAddresses
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Url Proxy Hunt

// Hunt for web traffic to URLhaus malicious domains
let malicious_domains = dynamic(["172.245.12.92"]);
CommonSecurityLog
| where RequestURL has_any (malicious_domains) or DestinationHostName has_any (malicious_domains)
| project TimeGenerated, SourceIP, RequestURL, DestinationHostName, DeviceAction
| order by TimeGenerated desc

Required Data Sources

References

• URLhaus

False Positive Guidance

Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the URLhaus: connectwise Malicious URLs detection rule, including suggested filters and exclusions tailored for an enterprise environment:

• Scenario: Automated Patch Deployment via ConnectWise Automate (PSA)

  • Context: The ConnectWise PSA platform frequently initiates background jobs to download patch definitions or update agent configurations from connectwise.com subdomains. These legitimate downloads often match the URL pattern flagged by the rule, especially when agents pull large payloads during off-hours.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Create a whitelist for traffic originating from the specific internal IP range of the ConnectWise Automate server (e.g., 10.20.50.x) accessing any subdomain under *.connectwise.com. Additionally, exclude HTTP GET requests where the User-Agent string contains “ConnectWise-Automate” or “CWA-Service”.

• Scenario: Scheduled RMM Backup and Reporting Jobs

  • Context: Daily scheduled tasks within the ConnectWise Manage (PSA) system trigger automated report generation and backup synchronization. These jobs establish outbound connections to connectwise.com APIs to fetch real-time ticket data or sync CRM records, which can be misidentified as malicious URL traversal if the rule expects a specific path structure.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude traffic occurring during defined maintenance windows (e.g., 02:00–04:00 UTC) where the destination URL contains /api/v1 or /reports. Implement a filter that allows connections from service accounts named svc_cw_psa or cw_backup_agent to bypass this specific detection rule.

• Scenario: Third-Party Integration Webhooks (e.g., Jira or Salesforce)

  • Context: Enterprise environments often integrate ConnectWise with external tools like Jira,