Threat Hunting

Unit 42 (Oct 12 TTI): SEO-poisoned "PuTTY" downloads serve Putty-x86_64.msi that drops a signed PuTTY 0.85 decoy plus a Node.js bring-your-own-interpreter loader. C2 URL is resolved via Ethereum eth_call (EtherHiding) and polled every 500 ms as fake static assets; operators push recon, cookie theft, and near-live screen streaming.

// KQL sketch — AppData node + msiexec→curl Node zip
DeviceProcessEvents
| where FileName =~ "node.exe" and FolderPath has @"AppData\Local"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, FolderPath, ProcessCommandLine
DeviceProcessEvents
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "msiexec.exe"
| where FileName in~ ("curl.exe","cmd.exe") and ProcessCommandLine has "nodejs.org"

Also watch eth_call from non-browser processes to public Ethereum RPCs. Sketch only; validate IOCs from Unit 42 before alerting.

Both campaigns end in web-server-spawned shells and miners. Look for the web service process spawning cmd/powershell/sh, new script files in web roots, and outbound connections to mining pools.

// KQL (Defender) sketch
DeviceProcessEvents
| where InitiatingProcessFileName in~ ("java.exe","w3wp.exe","httpd","php-fpm")
| where FileName in~ ("cmd.exe","powershell.exe","sh","bash")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessFileName, ProcessCommandLine

Tune the parent list to your stack. Sketch only; validate before alerting.

Review SMA1000 access logs for unauthenticated requests to unusual Work Place paths, and investigate unexpected connections from the appliance to internal services. Rotate credentials for anything reachable through the appliance's trust context.