DBPEv210

Hunt Hypothesis

This YARA rule detects specific patterns indicative of the DBPEv210 malware family, which often leverages obfuscated code or known signatures to establish persistence or execute malicious payloads. Proactively hunting for this indicator allows the SOC team to identify compromised endpoints early, preventing potential lateral movement or data exfiltration before the threat actor can escalate privileges within the Azure Sentinel environment.

YARA Rule

rule DBPEv210
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 9C 6A 10 73 0B EB 02 C1 51 E8 06 [3] C4 11 73 F7 5B CD 83 C4 04 EB 02 99 EB FF 0C 24 71 01 E8 79 E0 7A 01 75 83 C4 04 9D EB 01 75 68 5F 20 40 ?? E8 B0 EF FF FF 72 03 73 01 75 BE }

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

• Scenario: A database administrator (DBA) executes a standard BACKUP or RESTORE command via sqlcmd or sqlplus to perform routine maintenance, which may involve writing large binary files or executing specific T-SQL/PLSQL blocks that match the YARA signature for database payload execution.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is sqlcmd.exe, sqlplus.exe, or psql.exe and the command line contains keywords like BACKUP, RESTORE, MAINTENANCE, or CHECKPOINT.
• Scenario: An automated ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) job runs a Python or Perl script that connects to the database using an ODBC/JDBC driver to perform data validation or transformation, potentially triggering the rule if the script executes stored procedures or dynamic SQL queries that resemble the detected pattern.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is python.exe, perl.exe, or java.exe and the working directory is within known ETL job paths (e.g., C:\ETL\Jobs\, /opt/etl/) or the command line includes --validate, --transform, or --load.
• Scenario: A security scanning tool (e.g., Nessus, Qualys, or a custom DB vulnerability scanner) runs a series of test queries or executes a benign stored procedure to verify database integrity or check for specific configurations, which may mimic the behavior of a malicious database payload.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes where the parent process is nessus.exe, qualys_agent.exe, or db_scan.exe and the command line contains --scan, --audit, or --verify.
• Scenario: A scheduled Windows Task or cron job runs a utility like `b