ThreatFox: SmartApeSG IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This detection rule identifies adversary activity by correlating network and endpoint telemetry against specific Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) linked to the SmartApeSG threat actor. Proactively hunting for these IOCs within Azure Sentinel is critical to rapidly detect early-stage intrusions, enabling the SOC team to isolate affected assets before the adversary can establish persistence or exfiltrate sensitive data.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: SmartApeSG Total IOCs: 2 IOC Types: domain, url

KQL: Domain Hunt

// Hunt for DNS queries to known malicious domains
// Source: ThreatFox - SmartApeSG
let malicious_domains = dynamic(["profile.cobaltwayfinder.org"]);
DnsEvents
| where Name has_any (malicious_domains)
| project TimeGenerated, Computer, Name, IPAddresses, QueryType
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Url Hunt

// Hunt for access to known malicious URLs
// Source: ThreatFox - SmartApeSG
let malicious_urls = dynamic(["https://profile.cobaltwayfinder.org/reset/gateway-runtime.js"]);
UrlClickEvents
| where Url has_any (malicious_urls)
| project Timestamp, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType, IsClickedThrough
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

References

• ThreatFox — SmartApeSG

False Positive Guidance

Here are 3-5 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: SmartApeSG IOCs detection rule, including targeted filters and exclusions:

• Scenario: Automated Security Tool Updates via Scheduled Tasks

  • Context: Enterprise endpoint protection suites (e.g., CrowdStrike Falcon or Microsoft Defender) often run scheduled update jobs that pull threat intelligence feeds from third-party vendors. If the SmartApeSG IOCs are part of a broader feed used by these tools, the update process may trigger network connections to SmartApeSG endpoints during off-hours.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion rule for processes matching C:\Program Files\CrowdStrike\FalconSensor\csfalcon.exe or C:\Windows\System32\scheduledtasks.exe when the source IP is within the corporate DMZ range (e.g., 10.50.x.x) and the destination port matches standard HTTPS traffic (443).

• Scenario: Admin-Initiated Threat Intelligence Ingestion

  • Context: Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts or GRC administrators frequently manually import new IOCs into SIEM platforms (e.g., Splunk, Sentinel) or threat management consoles. During these ingestion tasks, the admin workstation initiates outbound connections to the SmartApeSG repository to validate signatures before deployment.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the initiating user account belongs to a specific security group (e.g., SEC-Admins or SOC-Analysts) and the process name is splunkd.exe, sentinel-cli.exe, or PowerShell.exe running with elevated privileges.

• Scenario: Cloud Backup and Data Archiving Services

  • Context: Enterprise backup solutions (e.g., Veeam, Rubrik) often integrate with external threat intelligence APIs to tag