ThreatFox: Venus Stealer IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This hunt targets adversary behavior where Venus Stealer executes reconnaissance and data exfiltration activities by leveraging specific known Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) within the Azure environment. Proactively hunting for these IOCs is critical to rapidly identify early-stage infections before sensitive credentials and intellectual property are compromised, ensuring a swift containment response in Azure Sentinel.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: Venus Stealer Total IOCs: 3 IOC Types: sha256_hash, sha1_hash, md5_hash

Type	Value	Threat Type	First Seen	Confidence
sha256_hash	`f193b47f2739aaa35c0ecec5d2731dc7d343c200340015e4a2bff663c3041512`	payload	2026-07-05	95%
sha1_hash	`def05ff2de5bf7d550e6230c19480bae253d8043`	payload	2026-07-05	95%
md5_hash	`4be39027f6e94c46bf4307f6762d8b98`	payload	2026-07-05	95%

KQL: Hash Hunt

// Hunt for files matching known malicious hashes
// Source: ThreatFox - Venus Stealer
let malicious_hashes = dynamic(["f193b47f2739aaa35c0ecec5d2731dc7d343c200340015e4a2bff663c3041512", "def05ff2de5bf7d550e6230c19480bae253d8043", "4be39027f6e94c46bf4307f6762d8b98"]);
DeviceFileEvents
| where SHA256 in (malicious_hashes) or SHA1 in (malicious_hashes) or MD5 in (malicious_hashes)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, FileName, FolderPath, SHA256, InitiatingProcessFileName
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

Sentinel Table	Notes
`DeviceFileEvents`	Ensure this data connector is enabled

References

ThreatFox — Venus Stealer

False Positive Guidance

Here are specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: Venus Stealer IOCs detection rule, including suggested filters and exclusions tailored for an enterprise environment:

Endpoint Protection Scanning of Quarantine Archives
- Scenario: Enterprise Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions, such as CrowdStrike Falcon or Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, frequently scan historical quarantine archives or backup logs. If a previous incident involved a Venus Stealer sample that was quarantined but not fully deleted, the EDR’s scheduled deep-scan job may re-detect the file hash (IOC) within the C:\ProgramData\Quarantine directory, triggering an alert despite the threat being contained.
- Filter/Exclusion: Exclude alerts where the process path contains \CrowdStrike\ or \Microsoft Defender Antivirus\ and the file location is within a known quarantine folder (e.g., *Quarantine*, *\C:\Windows\System32\com\CrowdStrike\).
Software Deployment via Configuration Management Tools
- Scenario: During routine patch management cycles, tools like Ansible, SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), or Chef deploy software packages that may include shared libraries or dependencies with hashes matching Venus Stealer IOCs. For instance, a scheduled deployment of an updated Java Runtime Environment (JRE) might extract a DLL file identical to one flagged in the ThreatFox feed into C:\Windows\Temp before installation completes.
- Filter/Exclusion: Create a rule to suppress alerts where the parent process is a known configuration management agent (e.g., ccmexec.exe, ansible-playbook, chef-client) and the file creation timestamp aligns with the organization’s defined maintenance window (e.g., 02:00–04:00 UTC).