This hypothesis posits that adversaries are executing the Datper malware directly within memory to evade traditional disk-based detection mechanisms. Proactively hunting for this behavior in Azure Sentinel is critical because identifying these ephemeral processes early allows the SOC team to isolate potential lateral movement before the threat establishes persistence or exfiltrates sensitive data.
rule Datper {
meta:
description = "detect Datper in memory"
author = "JPCERT/CC Incident Response Group"
rule_usage = "memory scan"
reference = "https://blogs.jpcert.or.jp/en/2017/08/detecting-datper-malware-from-proxy-logs.html"
strings:
$a1 = { E8 03 00 00 }
$b1 = "|||"
$c1 = "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
$push7530h64 = { C7 C1 30 75 00 00 }
$push7530h = { 68 30 75 00 00 }
condition: $a1 and $b1 and $c1 and ($push7530h64 or $push7530h)
}
This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:
This rule contains 5 string patterns in its detection logic.
Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the detect Datper in memory rule, including suggested filters or exclusions tailored for an enterprise environment:
Scheduled Database Maintenance via PowerShell Scripts
Start-ScheduledTask) to perform database integrity checks using the Datper CLI tool. These scripts launch the datper.exe process in memory to analyze SQL Server or Oracle instances during off-hours, triggering the rule despite being a routine maintenance activity.powershell.exe where the command line contains specific keywords (e.g., -ExecutionPolicy Bypass, -File .\datper-maintenance.ps1) and occurs only on known maintenance windows (e.g., Sundays between 02:00–04:00 UTC).CI/CD Pipeline Artifact Analysis
datper running inside Docker containers on build servers as potential anomalies.java.exe for Jenkins, azdo-agent.service) or restrict the rule to only alert on endpoints that are not part of the “Build-Server” asset group in your CMDB.Third-Party Backup Solution Integration