ThreatFox: SmartApeSG IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt hypothesis targets adversary behavior involving known SmartApeSG indicators of compromise to identify potential lateral movement or initial access attempts within the Azure environment. Proactively hunting for these specific IOCs in Azure Sentinel is critical because early detection of this high-severity threat allows the SOC team to rapidly isolate affected assets and mitigate risks before the adversary establishes persistence.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: SmartApeSG Total IOCs: 6 IOC Types: url, domain

KQL: Domain Hunt

// Hunt for DNS queries to known malicious domains
// Source: ThreatFox - SmartApeSG
let malicious_domains = dynamic(["linenregistry.top", "cobaltjunction.top"]);
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://linenregistry.top/route/callback-deploy", "https://linenregistry.top/route/profile-xml.js", "https://cobaltjunction.top/reset/refresh-util", "https://cobaltjunction.top/reset/principal-response.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 5 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: SmartApeSG IOCs detection rule in an enterprise environment, including suggested filters and exclusions:

• Scenario: Internal Security Scanner Traffic

  • Context: The organization’s internal vulnerability management platform (e.g., Tenable Nessus or Qualys) performs scheduled scans against the ThreatFox sandbox infrastructure. During these scans, the scanner probes known SmartApeSG IP addresses and domains to verify connectivity and certificate validity, generating network flow logs that match the rule’s IOCs.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Create a whitelist exclusion for traffic originating from the internal security scanner subnet (e.g., 10.20.50.0/24) or specifically exclude source IPs assigned to the Tenable/Qualys management nodes when communicating with the ThreatFox sandbox IP range.

• Scenario: Automated Patch Management Deployment

  • Context: During a scheduled maintenance window, the IT operations team uses Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM) or Ivanti to deploy security updates to the ThreatFox analysis agents. The deployment process involves downloading update manifests and binaries from SmartApeSG repositories, triggering file hash matches and DNS resolution events against the rule’s IOCs.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the Process Name is identified as the patch management agent (e.g., ccmexec.exe, IvantiAgent.exe) or filter for specific scheduled job IDs associated with the “ThreatFox Agent Update” task running between 02:00 and 04:00 UTC.

• Scenario: Cloud Backup and Archiving Jobs

  • Context: The enterprise utilizes a cloud backup solution like Veeam Backup & Replication or Commvault, which includes the ThreatFox data lake