SDProtectorBasicProEdition110RandyLi

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt hypothesis targets potential malware or suspicious executables identified by the SDProtector YARA signature to detect early-stage adversary activity that may evade standard heuristic scans. Proactively hunting for this indicator in Azure Sentinel allows the SOC team to validate low-severity alerts and uncover stealthy threats before they escalate into significant incidents within the cloud environment.

YARA Rule

rule SDProtectorBasicProEdition110RandyLi
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 55 8B EC 6A FF 68 1D 32 13 05 68 88 88 88 08 64 A1 00 00 00 00 50 64 89 25 00 00 00 00 58 64 A3 00 00 00 00 58 58 58 58 8B E8 50 83 EC 08 64 A1 00 00 00 00 64 FF 35 00 00 00 00 64 89 25 00 00 00 00 83 C4 08 50 64 FF 35 00 00 00 00 64 89 25 00 00 00 00 64 }

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

Here are 5 specific false positive scenarios for the SDProtectorBasicProEdition110RandyLi detection rule, including suggested filters and exclusions:

• Scenario: The Microsoft Defender Antivirus service (MsMpEng.exe) performs a scheduled daily scan of the System Volume Information folder.

  • Context: During peak business hours (e.g., 9:00 AM), the engine scans deep system directories, triggering the rule due to high I/O and specific file access patterns matching the YARA signature.
  • Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Add a process exclusion for MsMpEng.exe when accessing paths containing \System Volume Information\. Alternatively, configure a time-based filter to suppress alerts from this process between 08:30 and 17:30 on weekdays.

• Scenario: The SCCM (Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager) client executes the “Software Updates” policy deployment task.

  • Context: When deploying a new patch or application package, ccmsetup.exe or WUAHandler.exe creates temporary files and modifies registry keys in a manner that mimics the behavior profile defined in the YARA rule.
  • Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion for process names starting with ccm*.exe and WUAHandler.exe. Additionally, exclude file paths under C:\Windows\CCM\Logs and C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SCCM.

• Scenario: A scheduled PowerShell script (PowerShell.exe) runs a backup or reporting job initiated by the System account.

  • Context: The nightly “Inventory Report” job generates temporary JSON/CSV files in the root directory of the C: drive, which triggers the rule’s file creation and network connection logic.
  • Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Implement a filter that excludes