398. SmartRAT - Smart Folders?

Hello everyone! 

Let's take a look at another example of how threat actors use interesting folders for masquarading as part of the Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location (T1036.005) technique. 

Today's example is SmartRAT. If we look at the report, we'll immediately notice that the malware actively uses the following folders: 

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Diagnosis\ETW\ 

%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Diagnosis\ETW\ 

For example, the malware could create a service using the following command:

"C:\Windows\system32\sc.exe" create MicrosoftEdgeUpdateCore binPath= "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Diagnosis\ETW\MicrosoftEdgeUpdateCore.exe" start= auto obj= LocalSystem DisplayName= "Windows Diagnostics ETW Service" 

These are certainly not the most common locations for malware deployment, which makes them good candidates for threat hunting: 

event_type: "processcreatewin"

AND

proc_file_path: "Microsoft\\Diagnosis\\ETW"

See you soon!

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