hatman payload

Hunt Hypothesis

This detection targets adversaries deploying Hatman payloads to establish persistence or execute initial command-and-control communications within the environment. Proactive hunting for this signature in Azure Sentinel is essential to identify early-stage intrusions that may evade standard high-severity alerts due to their low-risk classification, ensuring comprehensive coverage against sophisticated threat actors.

YARA Rule

rule hatman_payload : hatman {
    condition:
        filesize < 100KB and hatman_payload_int and not hatman_injector_int
}

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
• Source Rule

False Positive Guidance

Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the hatman_payload detection rule in an enterprise environment, including suggested filters and exclusions:

• Endpoint Protection Agent Updates

  • Scenario: The deployment of security patches or definition updates by endpoint protection suites (e.g., CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or SentinelOne) often involves downloading and executing signed payload binaries that match the hatman signature structure. These legitimate background processes frequently trigger alerts when they unpack new modules during off-hours maintenance windows.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Create a whitelist exclusion based on the Publisher Name (e.g., “CrowdStrike Technologies, Inc.” or “Microsoft Corporation”) and restrict the rule to only alert if the file hash is not present in the organization’s known-good artifact repository.

• IT Asset Management Scans

  • Scenario: Scheduled inventory scans performed by asset management tools like ServiceNow Discovery, LanDesk (Ivanti), or SCCM (Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager) involve agents injecting temporary payload files to query hardware and software configurations. These injections often mimic the behavior of the hatman payload, particularly when scanning for specific application versions across a large fleet of workstations.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts originating from known service accounts (e.g., svc-asset-scan, SCCM-Agent) and filter by process path containing standard installation directories such as C:\Program Files\Ivanti or C:\Windows\CCM.

• Software Deployment via Package Managers

  • Scenario: Automated software distribution tasks executed by tools like Chocolatey, Ansible, or Jenkins CI/CD pipelines often extract and stage application installers. When these tools deploy internal applications (e.g., a custom HR portal update), the extraction of