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RomeoAlfa

yara LOW Yara-Rules
community
This rule was pulled from an open-source repository and enriched with AI. Validate in a test environment before deploying to production.
View original rule at Yara-Rules →
Retrieved: 2026-07-05T23:00:00Z · Confidence: medium

Hunt Hypothesis

This hypothesis posits that adversaries are executing specific file-based activities identified by the RomeoAlfa YARA signature to establish persistence or execute initial payloads within the environment. The SOC team should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to validate the low-severity alert’s context, ensuring that these subtle indicators do not represent early-stage reconnaissance or lateral movement attempts that could escalate if left uninvestigated.

YARA Rule

rule RomeoAlfa
{
	meta:
		copyright = "2015 Novetta Solutions"
		author = "Novetta Threat Research & Interdiction Group - trig@novetta.com"
		Source = "fba0b8bdc1be44d100ac31b864830fcc9d056f1f5ab5486384e09bd088256dd0.file2.bin"

	strings:
	/*
		68 C4 94 41 00     push    offset a0_0_0_0 ; "0.0.0.0"
		56                 push    esi             ; wchar_t *
		E8 1C B4 00 00     call    _wcscpy
		83 C6 28           add     esi, 28h
		83 C4 08           add     esp, 8
		81 FE E8 CD 41 00  cmp     esi, offset unk_41CDE8
		7C E7              jl      short loc_4039DA
	*/

	$zeroIPLoader = {68 [4] 56 E8 [4] 83 C6 28 83 C4 08 81 FE [4] 7C E?}
		


		// push    esi                              
		// mov     esi, [esp+4+a1]                  
		// test    esi, esi                         
		// jle     short loc_403FEB                 
		// push    edi                              
		// mov     edi, ds:Sleep                    
		// push    0EA60h          ; dwMilliseconds 
		// call    edi ; Sleep                      
		// dec     esi                              
		// jnz     short loc_403FE0                 
		// pop     edi                              
		// pop     esi                              
		// retn                                     
		$sleeper  = {5? 8B [3] 85 ?? 7E ?? 5? 8B 3D [4]  68 [4] FF ??  4? 75 ??	5? 5? C3 }
			
		$xercesc = "xercesc"
		
	condition:
		($sleeper in ((pe.sections[pe.section_index(".text")].raw_data_offset)..(pe.sections[pe.section_index(".text")].raw_data_offset + pe.sections[pe.section_index(".text")].raw_data_size))
		or $zeroIPLoader in ((pe.sections[pe.section_index(".text")].raw_data_offset)..(pe.sections[pe.section_index(".text")].raw_data_offset + pe.sections[pe.section_index(".text")].raw_data_size)))
		and not $xercesc
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

This rule contains 3 string patterns in its detection logic.

False Positive Guidance

Here are 5 specific false positive scenarios for the RomeoAlfa detection rule in an enterprise environment, along with targeted exclusion strategies:

Original source: https://github.com/Yara-Rules/rules/blob/main/malware/Operation_Blockbuster/RomeoAlfa.yara