ProtectionPlusvxx

Hunt Hypothesis

This rule detects the presence of ProtectionPlus, a potentially unwanted program (PUP) often associated with adware or system optimization tools that may introduce unwanted background processes or data collection. Proactively hunting for this signature helps the SOC identify low-severity endpoints that could serve as initial footholds for more complex attacks or contribute to performance degradation and increased attack surface within the Azure environment.

YARA Rule

rule ProtectionPlusvxx
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 50 60 29 C0 64 FF 30 E8 [4] 5D 83 ED 3C 89 E8 89 A5 14 [3] 2B 85 1C [3] 89 85 1C [3] 8D 85 27 03 [2] 50 8B ?? 85 C0 0F 85 C0 [3] 8D BD 5B 03 [2] 8D B5 43 03 [2] E8 DD [3] 89 85 1F 03 [2] 6A 40 68 ?? 10 [2] 8B 85 }

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: An IT administrator manually installs or updates the ProtectionPlus (or a similar legacy security suite like Avast or Kaspersky) on a workstation or server using the standalone installer package (e.g., setup.exe or install.msi) outside of the standard SCCM/Intune deployment window.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is explorer.exe or cmd.exe and the command line contains setup.exe or install.msi with arguments referencing the specific vendor directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\ProtectionPlus\). Alternatively, whitelist the specific hash of the known-good installer binary.

• Scenario: A scheduled maintenance job (e.g., via Task Scheduler or Cron on Linux) runs a script to verify the integrity of the security agent or trigger a full system scan, which may spawn a child process from the ProtectionPlus directory that matches the YARA signature for the agent binary or its updater service.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the parent process is svchost.exe (specifically the LocalService or NetworkService instance) or taskeng.exe (Task Scheduler engine), and the image path is located under the known vendor installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\ProtectionPlus\).

• Scenario: A developer or QA engineer runs a local test instance of the ProtectionPlus agent on a non-production build machine or a dev VM to test compatibility with new application features, using a custom build or debug version of the binary that slightly differs from the production hash but still matches the YARA structural patterns.

  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude hosts tagged with Environment:Dev or Role:QA in your CMDB or asset inventory. Additionally