DotFixNiceProtect21GPcHSoft

Hunt Hypothesis

This rule identifies the presence of the DotFix NiceProtect 21 GPcHSoft component, a known artifact associated with specific malware families or persistence mechanisms that adversaries may deploy to maintain access or execute payloads. Proactively hunting for this signature allows the SOC to detect low-severity footholds or dormant implants before they are leveraged for lateral movement or privilege escalation within the Azure environment.

YARA Rule

rule DotFixNiceProtect21GPcHSoft
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { E9 FF 00 00 00 60 8B 74 24 24 8B 7C 24 28 FC B2 80 33 DB A4 B3 02 E8 6D 00 00 00 73 F6 33 C9 E8 64 00 00 00 73 1C 33 C0 E8 5B 00 00 00 73 23 B3 02 41 B0 10 E8 4F 00 00 00 12 C0 73 F7 75 3F AA EB D4 E8 4D 00 00 00 2B CB 75 10 E8 42 00 00 00 EB 28 AC D1 E8 74 4D 13 C9 EB 1C 91 48 C1 E0 08 AC E8 2C 00 00 00 3D 00 7D 00 00 73 0A 80 FC 05 73 06 83 F8 7F 77 02 41 41 95 8B C5 B3 01 56 8B F7 2B F0 F3 A4 5E EB 8E 02 D2 75 05 8A 16 46 12 D2 C3 33 C9 41 E8 EE FF FF FF 13 C9 E8 E7 FF FF FF 72 F2 C3 2B 7C 24 28 89 7C 24 1C 61 C3 60 B8 [4] 03 C5 50 B8 [4] 03 C5 FF 10 BB [4] 03 DD 83 C3 0C 53 50 B8 [4] 03 C5 FF 10 6A 40 68 00 10 00 00 FF 74 24 2C 6A 00 FF D0 89 44 24 1C 61 C3 }

condition:
		$a0
}

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

• Legacy Java Application Deployment (JRE/JDK Updates)

  • Scenario: Enterprise Java applications (e.g., Oracle WebLogic, Apache Tomcat, or custom internal tools) rely on specific versions of the Java Runtime Environment. During scheduled patching cycles or manual deployments by the DevOps team, the java or javaw process may be spawned from a non-standard directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\InternalApp\jre\bin) or executed with specific classpath arguments that match the “NiceProtect” heuristic if the rule targets specific memory patterns or file headers associated with older JRE builds.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is a known deployment tool (e.g., msiexec.exe, powershell.exe running a specific script path) or exclude the binary if its SHA256 hash matches the known good JRE version used in the environment.

• Third-Party Antivirus/EDR Real-Time Scanning

  • Scenario: Some enterprise endpoint protection suites (e.g., CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or SentinelOne) perform in-memory scanning or heuristic analysis. If the YARA rule DotFixNiceProtect21GPcHSoft is triggered by a specific byte pattern in a legitimate executable’s header or code section, the EDR agent itself might be the one loading or inspecting the file, causing the rule to fire on the EDR service process or its helper binaries rather than the target application.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is a known EDR service (e.g., FalconSensor.exe, MsMpEng.exe, SentinelOne.exe) or exclude the rule if the process path resides in the EDR installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\CrowdStrike\).