yodasProtectorv10bAshkbizDanehkar

Hunt Hypothesis

This detection identifies potential execution of the “yodasProtectorv10bAshkbizDanehkar” YARA signature, which may indicate the presence of a specific known threat or benign application within the environment. Although currently flagged with low severity, proactively hunting for this indicator in Azure Sentinel allows the SOC team to validate its behavior across endpoints and determine if it represents an emerging threat requiring elevated monitoring or rule refinement.

YARA Rule

rule yodasProtectorv10bAshkbizDanehkar
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 55 8B EC 53 56 57 60 E8 00 00 00 00 5D 81 ED 4C 32 40 00 E8 03 00 00 00 EB 01 ?? B9 EA 47 40 00 81 E9 E9 32 40 00 8B D5 81 C2 E9 32 40 00 8D 3A 8B F7 33 C0 E8 04 00 00 00 90 EB 01 ?? E8 03 00 00 00 EB 01 }

condition:
		$a0 at pe.entry_point
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

• Microsoft Defender for Endpoint — Custom indicators / advanced hunting
• Email Gateway — Attachment scanning
• File Share Monitoring — Periodic scanning of shared drives
• YARA CLI — Manual threat hunting on endpoints

This rule contains 1 string patterns in its detection logic.

• Source Rule

False Positive Guidance

Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the yodasProtectorv10bAshkbizDanehkar detection rule, along with targeted filtering strategies:

• Scenario: Automated Antivirus Definition Updates

  • Context: The YARA rule detects a legitimate executable (e.g., msseces.exe or avgam.exe) performing signature database updates. These processes often spawn child processes that load dynamic libraries matching the rule’s pattern for “suspicious payload injection.”
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude process paths containing known antivirus vendor directories, such as C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client or C:\ProgramData\McAfee. Additionally, add a filter to ignore events where the parent process is identified as an AV service (e.g., Antimalware Service Exec).

• Scenario: Scheduled Backup and Archiving Jobs

  • Context: Enterprise backup solutions like Veeam Backup & Replication or Commvault frequently compress large datasets into archives. The rule may misinterpret the creation of temporary archive files (.zip, .7z) containing embedded scripts as a potential malicious staging activity.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion based on specific service accounts used by backup software, such as DOMAIN\VeeamService or DOMAIN\CommvaultSvc. Filter events where the file extension is .vbk, .zip, or .7z and the process name matches known backup executables (e.g., Veeam.Backup.Service.exe).

• Scenario: Software Deployment via Endpoint Management

  • Context: During business hours, tools like Microsoft Intune, SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), or Jamf push application updates. These agents often extract installation packages to temporary folders (%TEMP%) which triggers the rule