The detection identifies potential Duqu2 APT activity through the presence of a suspicious file associated with the Kaspersky APT report, indicating possible adversary persistence or data exfiltration. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to identify and mitigate early-stage APT operations before they escalate.
YARA Rule
rule APT_Kaspersky_Duqu2_SamsungPrint
{
meta:
description = "Kaspersky APT Report - Duqu2 Sample - file 2a9a5afc342cde12c6eb9a91ad29f7afdfd8f0fb17b983dcfddceccfbc17af69"
author = "Florian Roth"
reference = "https://goo.gl/7yKyOj"
date = "2015-06-10"
hash = "ce39f41eb4506805efca7993d3b0b506ab6776ca"
strings:
$s0 = "Installer for printer drivers and applications" fullword wide /* PEStudio Blacklist: strings */
$s1 = "msi4_32.dll" fullword wide
$s2 = "HASHVAL" fullword wide
$s3 = "SELECT `%s` FROM `%s` WHERE `%s`='CAData%i'" fullword wide
$s4 = "ca.dll" fullword ascii
$s5 = "Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd." fullword wide
condition:
uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and filesize < 82KB and all of them
}This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:
This rule contains 6 string patterns in its detection logic.
Scenario: A system administrator is using Kaspersky Endpoint Security to perform a scheduled malware scan, which triggers the detection of a known Duqu2 sample as part of its signature database.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the process is kavsvc.exe (Kaspersky Antivirus service) and the file is part of the Kaspersky signature database.
Scenario: A Windows Update or Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) deployment includes a file that matches the Duqu2 signature due to a false positive in the detection logic.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the process is wuauclt.exe (Windows Update) or setup.exe (Microsoft Endpoint Manager), and the file path contains known update directories like C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution.
Scenario: A system backup job (e.g., using Veeam Backup & Replication) includes a file that was previously flagged by Kaspersky as a Duqu2 sample, leading to a false positive.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the process is veeam.exe or vbackup.exe, and the file path is within a known backup directory such as C:\VeeamBackup.
Scenario: A third-party security tool (e.g., Bitdefender, Malwarebytes) is running a scan and reports the same file as a Duqu2 sample, causing the rule to trigger.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the process is mbam.exe (Malwarebytes) or bdagent.exe (Bitdefender), and the file is part of the tool’s own signature database.
Scenario: A Windows Task Scheduler job is executing a legitimate script or tool (e.g., PowerShell, PsExec) that includes a file with a hash matching the