ThreatFox: Havoc IOCs

Hunt Hypothesis

This hypothesis posits that adversaries are utilizing Havoc C2 infrastructure to establish persistent command-and-control channels within the environment, as indicated by specific network traffic matching known Havoc IOCs. Proactive hunting for these indicators in Azure Sentinel is critical because early detection of this sophisticated framework allows the SOC team to disrupt lateral movement and data exfiltration before the adversary fully embeds their operations.

IOC Summary

Malware Family: Havoc Total IOCs: 2 IOC Types: ip:port

KQL: Ip Hunt

// Hunt for network connections to known malicious IPs
// Source: ThreatFox - Havoc
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["45.150.36.229", "123.215.57.178"]);
CommonSecurityLog
| where DestinationIP in (malicious_ips) or SourceIP in (malicious_ips)
| project TimeGenerated, SourceIP, DestinationIP, DestinationPort, DeviceAction, Activity
| order by TimeGenerated desc

KQL: Ip Hunt Device

// Hunt in Defender for Endpoint network events
let malicious_ips = dynamic(["45.150.36.229", "123.215.57.178"]);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP in (malicious_ips)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, RemoteIP, RemotePort, InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType
| order by Timestamp desc

Required Data Sources

References

• ThreatFox — Havoc

False Positive Guidance

Here are 4 specific false positive scenarios for the ThreatFox: Havoc IOCs detection rule in an enterprise environment, along with suggested filters or exclusions:

• Automated Patch Management Scans

  • Scenario: The organization uses Qualys Cloud Agent or Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM) to perform scheduled vulnerability assessments. These agents frequently initiate outbound connections to the vendor’s update servers and internal patch repositories, which may share IP ranges or domain names with known Havoc infrastructure used for legitimate telemetry.
  • Suggested Filter: Create an exclusion rule that whitelists traffic originating from specific service accounts (e.g., svc-qualys-agent or DOMAIN\MECM-Svc) and restricts the alert to only trigger if the destination port is not standard HTTP/HTTPS (80/443) or if the connection duration exceeds 5 minutes without a corresponding file download event.

• Third-Party SaaS Application Integration

  • Scenario: A widely used enterprise collaboration tool, such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom, utilizes cloud-based content delivery networks (CDNs) for media streaming and file synchronization. These CDNs often host assets on IP blocks that overlap with Havoc’s legitimate IOCs, particularly during peak business hours when users are actively syncing large files.
  • Suggested Filter: Implement a filter to suppress alerts where the source process is Teams.exe, Zoom.exe, or their respective background services (OneDrive.exe), and the destination IP belongs to known public CDN ranges (e.g., Azure Cloud, AWS CloudFront) rather than specific Havoc command-and-control subnets.

• Scheduled Backup and Archiving Jobs

  • Scenario: The enterprise runs nightly backup jobs using Veeam Backup & Replication or Commvault. These solutions often communicate with off-site