APT Derusbi DeepPanda | SOC Hunt Feed

Hunt Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that the detection rule identifies potential indicators of the APT Derusbi/DeepPanda group by matching known malicious artifacts, which may indicate initial compromise or lateral movement within a network. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to detect early-stage adversarial activity and prevent further exploitation in their environment.

YARA Rule

rule APT_Derusbi_DeepPanda
{

meta:
    author = "ThreatConnect Intelligence Research Team"
    reference = "http://www.crowdstrike.com/sites/default/files/AdversaryIntelligenceReport_DeepPanda_0.pdf"

strings:
    $D = "Dom4!nUserP4ss" wide ascii

condition:
    $D
}

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.

References

False Positive Guidance

Scenario: Scheduled System Backup Using Veeam Backup & Replication
Description: A legitimate backup process using Veeam may trigger the rule due to similar file patterns or behavior.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for process.name containing “Veeam” or file.name containing “VeeamBackup.exe”.
Scenario: Windows Task Scheduler Job for Log Management Using Splunk Universal Forwarder
Description: A scheduled task running the Splunk Universal Forwarder to collect logs may match the YARA rule due to similar binary characteristics.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for process.name containing “splunkforwarder” or file.name containing “splunkforwarder.exe”.
Scenario: Admin Performing Disk Cleanup Using Disk Cleanup Tool (cleanmgr.exe)
Description: The built-in Windows Disk Cleanup tool may generate similar artifacts that trigger the rule.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for process.name equal to “cleanmgr.exe” or process.parent.name equal to “explorer.exe”.
Scenario: Software Update Deployment Using Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM)
Description: A legitimate update deployment process using MECM may trigger the rule due to similar file or process behavior.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for process.name containing “ConfigMgr” or file.name containing “ConfigMgr.exe”.
Scenario: Database Maintenance Job Using SQL Server Agent
Description: A SQL Server Agent job performing routine maintenance tasks may generate similar activity that matches the rule.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for process.name containing “sqlservr.exe” or process.parent.name containing “sqlagent.exe”.