VProtectorV10Bvcasm

Hunt Hypothesis

This detection identifies potential malicious activity associated with the VProtector antivirus engine’s virtualization or behavioral analysis components, which may indicate an adversary attempting to evade signature-based defenses through process manipulation. A SOC team should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to distinguish between legitimate security software operations and sophisticated evasion tactics that could mask initial compromise stages within their endpoint environment.

YARA Rule

rule VProtectorV10Bvcasm
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 55 8B EC 6A FF 68 CA 37 41 00 68 06 38 41 00 64 A1 00 00 00 00 50 64 89 25 00 00 00 00 E8 03 00 00 00 C7 84 00 58 EB 01 E9 83 C0 07 50 }

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 VProtectorV10Bvcasm detection rule, including suggested filters and exclusions:

• Scenario: Legitimate execution of the Microsoft Defender Antivirus (MSPA) service (MsMpEng.exe) performing a scheduled on-access scan.

  • Context: The MSPA engine frequently loads its own behavioral analysis modules which may match the VProtector signature logic, especially when scanning large file repositories or during the initial boot sequence of a domain-joined workstation.
  • Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Create an exclusion for the process name MsMpEng.exe running under the NT SERVICE\Antimalware Service Executable account, specifically targeting the path C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MsMpEng.exe.

• Scenario: Deployment of a new patch or update via Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) or Intune.

  • Context: During the installation phase of cumulative updates or third-party software agents, SCCM’s ccmsetup.exe or Intune’s DeviceCensusAgent often spawns child processes that utilize similar bytecode patterns to the VProtector signature, triggering alerts during the “install” and “configure” phases.
  • Suggested Filter/Exclusion: Exclude process trees initiated by ccmexec.exe (SCCM) or IntuneManagementExtension.exe where the parent process is running under the SYSTEM account on endpoints within the IT-Infrastructure OU.

• Scenario: Execution of a scheduled Veeam Backup & Replication agent task.

  • Context: The Veeam Agent for Windows (VeeamAgent.exe) or the Veeam Service Console often runs background jobs to verify backup integrity and manage virtual machine snapshots. These operations involve heavy file I/O and