ThreatFox: Kimwolf IOCs | SOC Hunt Feed

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt detects adversary activity consistent with the Kimwolf threat by identifying network connections and file artifacts matching its specific set of ten Indicators of Compromise (IOCs). Proactively hunting for these signatures in Azure Sentinel is critical to rapidly identify early-stage infections before they escalate into broader lateral movements or data exfiltration events.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: Kimwolf Total IOCs: 10 IOC Types: ip:port

Type	Value	Threat Type	First Seen	Confidence
ip:port	`178[.]128[.]253[.]253:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`157[.]245[.]65[.]67:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`159[.]223[.]5[.]30:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`206[.]189[.]7[.]4:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`167[.]71[.]7[.]92:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`178[.]128[.]243[.]177:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`188[.]166[.]24[.]139:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`206[.]189[.]101[.]38:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`152[.]42[.]129[.]15:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%
ip:port	`209[.]38[.]35[.]163:25001`	botnet_cc	2026-06-30	100%

KQL: Ip Hunt

// Hunt for network connections to known malicious IPs
// Source: ThreatFox - Kimwolf
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["178.128.253.253", "167.71.7.92", "152.42.129.15", "178.128.243.177", "209.38.35.163", "157.245.65.67", "159.223.5.30", "206.189.7.4", "188.166.24.139", "206.189.101.38"]);
CommonSecurityLog
| where DestinationIP in (malicious_ips) or SourceIP in (malicious_ips)
| project TimeGenerated, SourceIP, DestinationIP, DestinationPort, DeviceAction, Activity
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Ip Hunt Device

// Hunt in Defender for Endpoint network events
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["178.128.253.253", "167.71.7.92", "152.42.129.15", "178.128.243.177", "209.38.35.163", "157.245.65.67", "159.223.5.30", "206.189.7.4", "188.166.24.139", "206.189.101.38"]);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP in (malicious_ips)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, RemoteIP, RemotePort, InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

Sentinel Table	Notes
`CommonSecurityLog`	Ensure this data connector is enabled
`DeviceNetworkEvents`	Ensure this data connector is enabled

References

ThreatFox — Kimwolf

False Positive Guidance

Here are 5 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: Kimwolf IOCs detection rule in an enterprise environment, along with suggested filters or exclusions:

Enterprise Antivirus Definition Updates
- Scenario: The organization’s endpoint protection suite (e.g., CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or Symantec) performs a scheduled update of its threat intelligence feed. During this process, the AV service downloads and validates signature files that may contain hash values matching the Kimwolf IOCs before they are fully quarantined or marked as benign in the local database.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude network connections and file creation events originating from the specific service accounts used by the EDR agent (e.g., svc-crowdstrike, LocalSystem running MsMpEng.exe) during the defined maintenance window (e.g., 02:00–04:00 UTC).
Software Deployment via Configuration Management
- Scenario: The IT Operations team executes a standard software deployment using tools like Microsoft SCCM, Ansible, or Puppet. A scheduled job pushes a new application package to endpoints, which includes a third-party library or installer component that shares a file hash with one of the Kimwolf IOCs (common in supply chain overlaps).
- Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion for processes spawned by known deployment engines (e.g., ccmexec.exe, Ansible-Runner) and restrict alerts to non-standard user accounts. If the IOC is a file hash, whitelist the specific directory path where deployments are staged (e.g., C:\Windows\CCMCache).
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Log Ingestion
- Scenario: The SIEM platform itself (e.g., Splunk, Elastic Security, or IBM QRadar) ingests log