SVKProtectorV13XPavolCerven

Hunt Hypothesis

This hypothesis targets the execution of the SVKProtectorV13X payload, a known component of the SVKProtector malware family, which adversaries may deploy to establish persistence or execute malicious logic within Azure environments. Proactively hunting for this specific YARA signature allows the SOC team to identify low-severity, potentially stealthy infections that standard behavioral detections might miss, ensuring early containment of targeted threats in Azure Sentinel.

YARA Rule

rule SVKProtectorV13XPavolCerven
{
      meta:
		author="malware-lu"
strings:
		$a0 = { 60 E8 00 00 00 00 5D 81 ED 06 00 00 00 EB 05 B8 [2] 42 00 64 A0 23 00 00 00 EB 03 C7 84 E8 84 C0 EB 03 C7 84 E9 75 67 B9 49 00 00 00 8D B5 C5 02 00 00 56 80 06 44 46 E2 FA 8B 8D C1 02 00 00 5E 55 51 6A 00 56 FF 95 0C 61 00 00 59 5D 40 85 C0 75 3C 80 3E 00 74 03 46 EB F8 46 E2 E3 8B C5 8B 4C 24 20 2B 85 BD 02 00 00 89 85 B9 02 00 00 80 BD B4 02 00 00 01 75 06 8B 8D 0C 61 00 00 89 8D B5 02 00 00 8D 85 0E 03 00 00 8B DD FF E0 55 68 10 10 00 00 8D 85 B4 00 00 00 50 8D 85 B4 01 00 00 50 6A 00 FF 95 18 61 00 00 5D 6A FF FF 95 10 61 00 00 44 65 62 75 67 67 65 72 20 6F 72 20 74 6F 6F 6C 20 66 6F 72 20 6D 6F 6E 69 74 6F 72 69 6E 67 20 64 65 74 65 63 74 65 64 21 21 21 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 }

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 legacy .NET application or internal tool is compiled using the SVKProtector obfuscator to protect intellectual property or prevent reverse engineering, and the binary is deployed to application servers or developer workstations.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude files located in specific application directories (e.g., C:\Program Files\InternalTools\, C:\inetpub\wwwroot\) or where the file extension is .exe and the parent process is a known application host (e.g., w3wp.exe, dotnet.exe).
• Scenario: An IT administrator manually runs a protected installer or configuration utility (e.g., Setup.exe or ConfigTool.exe) that has been obfuscated with SVKProtector to hide internal logic or license checks during a scheduled maintenance window.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude events where the parent process is explorer.exe or cmd.exe and the user account belongs to the IT_Admins or ServiceAccounts security group, specifically for files in temporary directories like %TEMP% or C:\Installers\.
• Scenario: A CI/CD pipeline agent (e.g., jenkins-agent.exe or azure-pipelines-agent.exe) downloads and executes a build artifact or test harness that was obfuscated with SVKProtector to ensure consistent binary behavior across environments.
  • Filter/Exclusion: Exclude files in the CI/CD workspace directories (e.g., C:\Jenkins\workspace\, C:\azure-pipelines\) or where the parent process matches known CI/CD agent executables.
• Scenario: A third-party vendor-provided utility (e.g., a database migration tool or log parser) is obfuscated with SVKProtector to protect proprietary algorithms, and it is executed via a scheduled task or service