Awesome VirusTotal Intelligence Search Queries
This repo lists useful Virustotal Intelligence aka Virustotal Enterprise search queries that are useful for threat hunting purposes. Please provide your favorite search queries as pull requests.
Show uploads named "payload" that have less than 5 antivirus eignes detecting them.
name:payload positives:5-
Show uploads named "exploit" that have less than 5 antivirus eignes detecting them. False positives are PDFs, web pages or documents with exploit descriptions.
name:exploit positives:5-
Show uploads that contain the keyword "obfus" in the filename and exclude android samples. (android samples obstruct view) The keyword "obfus" is often found in obfuscated malware samples.
name:obfus NOT tag:android
Show executable files that identify as Microsoft software but are packed with an unusual packer and have less than 10 positive antivirus matches
metadata:"Microsoft Corporation" AND tag:peexe AND ( packer:rar OR packer:upx OR packer:themida OR packer:asprox ) AND positives:10-
Unknown origin - no description yet
name:myvtfile.exe
Malware hosted on a government URL
itw:".gov" positives:5+
Find PE files submitted to VT, within n-seconds of compilation, that trigger at least 5 detections
subspan:300- positives:5+
You can tune it a bit using:
submitter:US - US submitter
submitter:web - web submitter
submissions:2- - submitted less then 2 times
Show samples with filenames starting with "mimi" (rare) that have less than 5 antivirus engines with matches.
name:mimi* positives:5-
Show samples with filenames ending with "katz.exe" (rare) that have less than 5 antivirus engines with matches.
name:*katz.exe positives:5-
Show samples with some antivirus engines matches. These are often obfuscated Mimikatz variants.
engines:mimikatz positives:5-
Example way to find Shamoon using the resource names:
resource:"PKCS7" and resource:"X509"
Reference: https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/unit42-shamoon-2-return-disttrack-wiper/
Show samples submitted from Germany with low antivirus coverage that could be successful phishing campaigns.
submitter:DE positives:2+ positives:10- (tag:doc OR tag:docx)
Show samples submitted from Taiwan with low antivirus coverage that could be successful NEW phishing campaigns (only 1 submitter).
submitter:TW positives:1+ positives:20- filename:*.eml submissions:1
Malicious submissions from Qatar are rare and often interesting if you're after threats in the Middle Eastern region.
submitter:QA positives:2+
Show samples submitted from Israel with the keyword "Syria" in the filename that have 2 or more antivirus engines matching.
submitter:IL name:syria positives:2+
Hunting signed macOS DMGs with minimum detections (often caused by heuristics)
ls:2019-01-16+ type:dmg positives:2+ tag:signed
Hunting for ELF binaries belonging to the MIRAI family
tag:elf AND p:2+ AND engines:Mirai
Hunting for ELF binaries excluding MIRAI and DDOS malware
tag:elf AND p:5+ NOT engines:Mirai NOT engines:DDOS
VTi has several Sandboxes that will scan the behavior of the submitted files; searching for categories combined with tags can be useful.
Search for ransomware using the Lastline sandbox:
lastline:RANSOM
Searching for stealers in the pe format on C2AE sandbox. (STEALER/MALWARE/TROJAN/RAT are some keywords used by this sandbox)
c2ae:STEALER and tag:peexe
VirusTotal Zenbox searches. (MALWARE/TROJAN/EVADER are some of the keywords used)
virustotal_zenbox:MALWARE
Content searches cannot be combined with other conditions.
Search for well-known mimikatz keyword in any type of sample.
content:"sekurlsa::logonpasswords"
Detects phishing documents that ask the user to activate macros
content:"click enable editing"
content:"click enable content"
Detects exploit codes
content:"] Shellcode"
Content searches for malware similaritis.
VT Feature Hash is an internal hash used by Virustotal.
similar-to:<hashofthefile>
Code Blocks is used to look for samples that contain the same pieces of code.
code-similar-to:<hashofthefile>
ImpHash is a well-known hash calculated with the Import Address Table to identify samples using the same imported functions.
imphash:<IATHash>
PE Rich Hash is a hash calculated from Rich Header.
rich_pe_header_hash:<Richhash>
TLSH is used to generate hash values which can then be analyzed for similarities.
tlsh:<tlshash>
SSDEEP is a fuzzing algorithm that can be used for the same purpose.
ssdeep:<ssdeep_hash>
The other functions are used to identify similarity based on behavior identified with sandbox analysis.
behash:<hashofthefile>