Detect DNS lookups for bandwidth-monetization proxyware services

Siemphony@siemphonymediumT1496unverified

Matches a Sysmon DNS query for the control and enrolment domains of bandwidth-selling proxyware clients, resolved by a process that is not an installed browser. AN0741 fuses sustained CPU load, a mining or obfuscated command line and egress to mining or proxy endpoints; CPU utilisation is not an event Sigma can read at all, and the command-line branch is T1496.001, so what is left is the reselling branch. Being the parent technique's rule, it necessarily overlaps T1496.002 — at this level of ATT&CK there is no observable that is resource hijacking in general rather than one of its sub-techniques, and the corpus's T1496.002 rule is the Linux execve arm of this same behaviour while this is its Windows DNS arm. It is MITRE's DestinationIPList knob, described there as known mining pool IPs or proxy service endpoints, populated here with proxyware vendor domains rather than addresses, since these services move endpoints constantly and a static IP list ages out within weeks. The browser exclusion is matched on the full install path under Program Files rather than on the image name, so that copying a client to chrome.exe no longer buys the exclusion for free; writing into Program Files still does, and it needs administrator rights. That list is a starting point and not a browser inventory — per-user browser installs and embedded web hosts sit outside it. Sysmon EventID 22 is the prerequisite and is frequently disabled or filtered for volume; a client resolving over DoH produces no EventID 22 at all; and this pipeline models no Sentinel table for the dns_query taxonomy, so the KQL has to be written by hand against DeviceNetworkEvents. The domain list is a snapshot of the vendors known at authoring time, and these services rebrand continually, so a quiet result is at least as likely to mean a stale list as a clean estate. UNVERIFIED AS AUTHORED — derived from MITRE ATT&CK DET0267, not hand-written and not tested by its author. Any lab result is on this rule's own page.Full description

The 3 SIEM queries below are previews produced by Siemphony’s own translator, not pySigma, and none has been executed against a real backend — review before you deploy.

detection.yml

Splunk · SPL

Run this as a search.

index=* ((QueryName="*honeygain.com*" OR QueryName="*peer2profit.com*" OR QueryName="*iproyal.com*" OR QueryName="*pawns.app*" OR QueryName="*packetstream.io*" OR QueryName="*traffmonetizer.com*" OR QueryName="*earnapp.com*" OR QueryName="*earn.fm*" OR QueryName="*repocket.co*" OR QueryName="*proxyrack.com*" OR QueryName="*proxylite.ru*" OR QueryName="*getgrass.io*" OR QueryName="*bitping.com*" OR QueryName="*mysterium.network*") AND NOT ((Image="C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Chrome\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\Edge\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\EdgeWebView\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\EdgeWebView\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Mozilla Firefox\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files\\BraveSoftware\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BraveSoftware\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files\\Opera\\*" OR Image="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Opera\\*")))

Elastic · ES|QL

Run this as a search.

FROM logs-*| WHERE ((TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*honeygain.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*peer2profit.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*iproyal.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*pawns.app*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*packetstream.io*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*traffmonetizer.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*earnapp.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*earn.fm*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*repocket.co*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*proxyrack.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*proxylite.ru*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*getgrass.io*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*bitping.com*" OR TO_LOWER(dns.question.name) LIKE "*mysterium.network*") AND NOT ((TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files\\\\google\\\\chrome\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files (x86)\\\\google\\\\chrome\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files\\\\microsoft\\\\edge\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files (x86)\\\\microsoft\\\\edge\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files\\\\microsoft\\\\edgewebview\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files (x86)\\\\microsoft\\\\edgewebview\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files\\\\mozilla firefox\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files (x86)\\\\mozilla firefox\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files\\\\bravesoftware\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files (x86)\\\\bravesoftware\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files\\\\opera\\\\*" OR TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "c:\\\\program files (x86)\\\\opera\\\\*")))

Wazuh · XML rule

Deploy to your manager — this is a rule, not a search.

<group name="sigma,windows,dns_query,">  <!-- Rule ids must be unique on your manager; 100000+ is the user range. -->  <rule id="100000" level="7">    <!-- Set <if_sid> to the decoder/base rule for windows so this only evaluates relevant events. -->    <field name="QueryName" type="pcre2">(?i)(honeygain\.com|peer2profit\.com|iproyal\.com|pawns\.app|packetstream\.io|traffmonetizer\.com|earnapp\.com|earn\.fm|repocket\.co|proxyrack\.com|proxylite\.ru|getgrass\.io|bitping\.com|mysterium\.network)</field>    <field name="Image" negate="yes" type="pcre2">(?i)(^C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Chrome\\|^C:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\Google\\Chrome\\|^C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\Edge\\|^C:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\|^C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\EdgeWebView\\|^C:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\Microsoft\\EdgeWebView\\|^C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\|^C:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\Mozilla Firefox\\|^C:\\Program Files\\BraveSoftware\\|^C:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\BraveSoftware\\|^C:\\Program Files\\Opera\\|^C:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\Opera\\)</field>    <description>Detect DNS lookups for bandwidth-monetization proxyware services</description>    <mitre>      <id>T1496</id>    </mitre>  </rule></group>

Sentinel · KQL

Run this as a search.

Sentinel cannot express this construct. No Sentinel table is modelled for this logsource ({"category":"dns_query","product":"windows"}), so there is nothing honest to query. Pick a logsource this translator maps, or write the KQL by hand. The Sigma source is on the first tab, unchanged.

At a glance

Logsource: dns_query / windows
Level: medium
Category: impact_destruction
Sigma status: experimental
Backends: 3 of 4 rendered
Updated: 30 Aug 2026
Rule ID: 311423bb-3ccb-41a3-b1e7-b38311e53e85

ATT&CKT1496

T1496Resource Hijacking

ATT&CK® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. These mappings are the rule author’s, and are neither reviewed nor endorsed by MITRE.

Lessonimpact destruction

impact destruction

01 · What this rule detects

The work an operator does to make recovery impossible before, or while, destroying data — deleting volume shadow copies, wiping backup catalogs, disabling Windows recovery and boot repair, and deleting or overwriting files recursively. Most of it happens in a short burst immediately before encryption, which is why the precursors are the part worth detecting: by the time file modification volume is the signal, the decision has already been made for you. This overlaps deliberately with log clearing — the same burst usually destroys evidence and recovery together — but keep the two rules apart, because they point at different questions.

02 · Telemetry you need

Process creation with full command lines — Sysmon EventID 1, or Security 4688 with Audit Process Creation and the command-line inclusion policy; without the second policy you see that vssadmin ran and nothing about what it did
The utilities themselves: vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, wbadmin, bcdedit, cipher, and the PowerShell and WMI equivalents that never touch a command-line binary
Sysmon EventID 23 and 26 (FileDelete and FileDeleteDetected) — not in the default configuration, and the archiving variant needs disk space budgeted for it
Service and provider activity for the Volume Shadow Copy service, and the backup product's own logs, which record deletion the operating system does not
Security 4663 for delete access on protected shares — Audit Object Access plus a SACL, off by default and inert without the SACL

03 · How the logic works

These command lines are short, fixed and close to unique, which makes this one of the few categories where string matching against the command line is the right primary approach rather than a fallback. Structure each as image AND destructive verb: matching vssadmin alone catches every backup product listing shadows, whereas vssadmin with delete does not. Allow for argument reordering, abbreviation and the several spellings of the same operation, and remember that the same effect is reachable through WMI and the COM interfaces without running the utility at all — so a rule set that names only the executables has a hole in it that any competent tooling walks through. The mass-encryption half is a rate problem: file modifications per process per minute, which Sigma cannot express and which belongs in the correlation layer.

04 · Common false positives

Backup software managing its own shadow storage and pruning old copies — Veeam, Acronis, Windows Server Backup and the built-in scheduled tasks
Disk cleanup and storage reclamation removing shadow copies when a volume fills
Imaging, provisioning and task sequences that use bcdedit and reset recovery configuration by design
Non-persistent VDI and lab rebuild workflows that discard machine state on every cycle
Developers and build systems recursively deleting output directories

05 · Detection maturity

Tier 1 — starting point: Matches vssadmin and wbadmin deletion command lines.
Tier 2 — tuned: Covers the WMI and PowerShell routes and boot configuration tampering, with backup hosts and maintenance windows excluded.
Tier 3 — correlated: Correlates recovery destruction with log clearing, service stops and file modification rate from the same host and process tree.

Tuning & false positivesexperimental · 4 declared

experimental (current stage)
test
stable

Written and reasoned about, but not yet run against real telemetry. Expect to tune it before trusting it.

Tuning tips

This should be a near-silent category. If it is noisy, find out what is deleting recovery points routinely and fix that rather than filtering it
Never exclude by account — the accounts used here are administrative by definition, which is the point
Scope exclusions to the specific backup hosts and their maintenance windows, and revisit them when the backup product changes
Alert on failed attempts as well as successful ones; a denied shadow deletion is the same intent and better news
Escalate hard on the combination — shadow deletion, log clearing and service stops from one host inside a few minutes is a different alert from any of them alone

Declared by the author

Employee-installed bandwidth-sharing apps on a personal or loosely managed machine. The user consented, so it is not an intrusion, but the telemetry is identical to the bundled case and the rule cannot separate them. On most estates this is the single largest source of hits and is a policy question rather than an incident.
Embedded web hosts rendering a link preview or an in-app page: msedgewebview2.exe and Electron or CEF applications such as Teams, Slack, Discord and VS Code. Most of these install per user under AppData\Local, so they fall outside the Program Files exclusion and arrive labelled as a non-browser resolving a proxyware domain.
Browsers installed per user rather than machine-wide, including Chrome's user-level installer under AppData\Local and portable Firefox builds, where an ordinary visit to the vendor's website matches because the exclusion only covers Program Files.
Security tooling that resolves these names on the analyst's behalf — a sandbox detonating a sample, a threat-intelligence enrichment agent, or a proxy or DNS-filtering product pre-resolving its own blocklist — none of which involve the host actually joining a proxy network.

Noise check0 of 1 fired

The baseline holds exactly one ordinary behaviour for this log type, and the rule does not fire on it. One event is close to no evidence: this says the rule is not caught by that one behaviour, and nothing more.

Run live against 65 hand-written events of ordinary corporate activity — backup agents, software distribution, patching, helpdesk scripts, EDR. It says nothing about how often the rule would fire in production, which is the number that actually exhausts an analyst.

Verification1 run

Not verified

Siemphony benign baseline
completed
Siemphony IR · 3 Sept 2026
No events matched, so this run proves nothing either way.

Test it yourselfin your browser

Runs here in your browser against public attack recordings. A preview — not the verification badge.

Recordings of T1496, evaluated against their dns_query events.

Share this rule

/u/siemphony/311423bb-3ccb-41a3-b1e7-b38311e53e85

More from this repertoire

All compositions

Verdicts · reactions · comments

Community

Verdicts from engineers who actually deployed it, and the conversation around it.

Not yet reported on

Nobody has run this in a real environment and said what happened.

Verdicts from engineers who deployed it

0 cast

No verdicts reported yet. The first one is worth more than the tenth — say what you ran it against.

No comments yet. Someone who deploys this will have something to say about it.

Detect DNS lookups for bandwidth-monetization proxyware services

The detection

detection.yml

Splunk · SPL

Elastic · ES|QL

Wazuh · XML rule

Sentinel · KQL

Community

Verdicts from engineers who deployed it