ENIGMAProtectorV112SukhovVladimir

Hunt Hypothesis

This rule identifies the presence of the ENIGMA Protector v1.1.2 packer, a technique frequently used by threat actors to obfuscate malicious payloads and evade static analysis. Proactively hunting for this specific packer allows the SOC team to uncover hidden malware or trojans that may have been deployed to compromise Azure workloads or endpoints before they execute their intended actions.

YARA Rule

rule ENIGMAProtectorV112SukhovVladimir
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 60 E8 00 00 00 00 5D 83 C5 FA 81 ED [3] 00 [31] E8 01 00 00 00 9A 83 C4 04 EB 02 FF 35 60 E8 24 00 00 00 00 00 FF EB 02 CD 20 8B 44 24 0C 83 80 B8 00 00 00 03 31 }

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

• Scenario: A developer or DevOps engineer is testing a custom C++ application compiled with the ENIGMA Protector v1.1.2 to verify obfuscation integrity before deployment. The binary is executed from a local development directory (e.g., C:\Users\dev\projects\test_app\build\) or within a Docker container on a build agent.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude execution from known development user profiles (C:\Users\*dev*, C:\Users\*engineer*) or specific build agent service accounts. Additionally, exclude paths containing keywords like \build\, \test\, or \dev\ if the file size is under 50MB and the parent process is a known IDE or compiler (e.g., cl.exe, msbuild.exe, docker.exe).

• Scenario: A legacy line-of-business (LOB) application, such as a specialized financial reporting tool or industrial control system (ICS) client, was developed years ago using ENIGMA Protector v1.1.2 and has not been recompiled. The application is launched via a scheduled task or a service account during nightly batch processing.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Create an allowlist for specific known-good hashes (SHA256) of the legacy executable. Alternatively, exclude execution if the parent process is Task Scheduler (taskschd.msi or svchost.exe with specific service groups) and the file path resides in a designated legacy application directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\LegacyFinApp\).

• Scenario: A security team is performing a red team engagement or penetration test, deploying a custom implant or tool that has been packed with ENIGMA Protector v1.1.2 to evade basic signature detection. The tool is executed from a temporary directory (%TEMP% or `C:\