ThreatFox: VShell IOCs | SOC Hunt Feed

Hunt Hypothesis

This rule detects the presence of VShell, a lightweight web shell that adversaries deploy to maintain persistent access and execute commands on compromised Azure resources. Proactively hunting for these IOCs is critical because VShell often operates silently to establish a foothold, enabling attackers to pivot laterally or exfiltrate data before traditional monitoring mechanisms can identify the compromise.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: VShell Total IOCs: 15 IOC Types: ip:port, url

Type	Value	Threat Type	First Seen	Confidence
ip:port	`47[.]90[.]209[.]157:18084`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]60[.]111:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]107:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]62[.]102:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]56[.]100:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]211[.]92[.]190:8084`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]120:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]123:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]103:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]117:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
url	`hxxp://23[.]225[.]71[.]207:8084/?h=23[.]225[.]71[.]207&p=8084&t=ws&a=w32&stage=true`	payload_delivery	2026-09-09	85%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]114:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`156[.]251[.]16[.]136:8084`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]102:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%
ip:port	`154[.]91[.]63[.]104:8094`	botnet_cc	2026-09-09	100%

KQL: Ip Hunt

// Hunt for network connections to known malicious IPs
// Source: ThreatFox - VShell
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["154.91.63.123", "154.91.56.100", "154.91.63.114", "154.91.62.102", "154.91.63.107", "47.90.209.157", "156.251.16.136", "154.91.63.102", "154.211.92.190", "154.91.63.120", "154.91.60.111", "154.91.63.103", "154.91.63.117", "154.91.63.104"]);
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(["154.91.63.123", "154.91.56.100", "154.91.63.114", "154.91.62.102", "154.91.63.107", "47.90.209.157", "156.251.16.136", "154.91.63.102", "154.211.92.190", "154.91.63.120", "154.91.60.111", "154.91.63.103", "154.91.63.117", "154.91.63.104"]);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP in (malicious_ips)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, RemoteIP, RemotePort, InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType
| order by Timestamp desc

KQL: Url Hunt

// Hunt for access to known malicious URLs
// Source: ThreatFox - VShell
let malicious_urls = dynamic(["http://23.225.71.207:8084/?h=23.225.71.207&p=8084&t=ws&a=w32&stage=true"]);
UrlClickEvents
| where Url has_any (malicious_urls)
| project Timestamp, AccountUpn, Url, ActionType, IsClickedThrough
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

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

References

ThreatFox — VShell

False Positive Guidance

Scenario: A DevOps engineer uses a standard CI/CD pipeline (e.g., Jenkins or GitHub Actions) to deploy a lightweight web server (like Nginx or Caddy) for internal staging environments, where the binary path or hash matches one of the VShell IOCs due to a shared build artifact or similar naming convention.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is a known CI/CD agent (e.g., jenkins.exe, agent.exe, docker.exe) or where the executable path resides within a designated C:\CI\ or /opt/ci/ directory.
Scenario: An IT administrator manually downloads a portable version of a web server or reverse proxy tool (such as caddy or nginx) to a temporary folder (%TEMP% or C:\Users\<User>\Downloads) to test configuration changes before deploying it to production, triggering the IOC match on the binary hash or path.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the file path contains Downloads, Temp, or AppData\Local\Temp and the user account belongs to the Administrators or ServiceAccounts group.
Scenario: A security team runs a YARA scan or uses a tool like Sysmon to audit existing binaries on endpoints, and the scanning process temporarily loads or inspects a file that matches a VShell IOC hash, creating a false positive in the process creation or file creation log.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the parent process is a known security tool (e.g., yara.exe, sysmon.exe, defender.exe, crowdstrikeagent.exe) or where the action is a “File Read” rather than “Process Start” if the rule is primarily hunting for execution.
Scenario: A development team