T1497 — Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion

# T1497 - Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion activity in the context of Stealth/Discovery: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.

## D3FEND Mappings
| D3FEND Technique | Relationship | Practical SOC Action |
|---|---|---|
| System Call Analysis | Detect | Monitor for System Call Analysis indicators relevant to this technique. |
| Software Update | Harden | Apply Software Update to reduce this technique's viability before an incident occurs. |
| System Call Filtering | Isolate | Apply System Call Filtering to contain the blast radius once this technique is observed. |
| Restore Software | Restore | Use Restore Software to recover affected systems or data after containment. |

## Investigation Steps
1. Review Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR alerts and timeline for the affected host or identity.
2. Check Sentinel analytics rules and incidents correlated with this technique.
3. Review Entra ID sign-in and audit logs if the technique involves an identity or cloud resource.

## Evidence to Collect
- Host or resource affected
- Account or identity involved
- Timestamp of the activity
- Related process, file, or network artifact
- Any preceding or follow-on alerts

## Response Actions
| Action | Risk | Automation Safe | Approval Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contain the affected host or account | Medium | No | Yes |
| Collect and preserve evidence | Low | Yes | No |

## KQL
```kql
DeviceEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(24h)
| where ActionType has "<tune to T1497>"
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion activity observed on a privileged account or critical system.
- Activity follows or precedes other suspicious behaviour in the same investigation.
- Automated triage cannot confidently rule out malicious intent.

## False Positive Considerations
- Legitimate administrative or maintenance activity matching this pattern.
- Approved security testing or red team exercise.
- Known benign software producing similar telemetry.

Generated by SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix.

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• /api/techniques/T1497.json
• /api/recommendations/T1497.json
• /api/d3fend/T1497.json
• /api/mappings/T1497.json
• /api/confluence/T1497.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1497.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1497",
  "name": "Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion",
  "priority": "high",
  "status": "draft",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Stealth",
    "Discovery"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "Linux",
    "macOS",
    "Windows"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries may employ various means to detect and avoid virtualization and analysis environments. This may include changing behaviors based on the results of checks for the presence of artifacts indicative of a virtual machine environment (VME) or sandbox. If the adversary detects a VME, they may alter their malware to disengage from the victim or conceal the core functions of the implant. They may also search for VME artifacts before dropping secondary or additional payloads...",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion activity in the context of Stealth/Discovery: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.",
  "d3fend_mappings": [
    {
      "id": "D3-SCA",
      "name": "System Call Analysis",
      "relationship": "detect",
      "practical_action": "Monitor for System Call Analysis indicators relevant to this technique.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "D3-SU",
      "name": "Software Update",
      "relationship": "harden",
      "practical_action": "Apply Software Update to reduce this technique's viability before an incident occurs.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "D3-SCF",
      "name": "System Call Filtering",
      "relationship": "isolate",
      "practical_action": "Apply System Call Filtering to contain the blast radius once this technique is observed.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "D3-RS",
      "name": "Restore Software",
      "relationship": "restore",
      "practical_action": "Use Restore Software to recover affected systems or data after containment.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "investigation_steps": {
    "microsoft": [
      "Review Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR alerts and timeline for the affected host or identity.",
      "Check Sentinel analytics rules and incidents correlated with this technique.",
      "Review Entra ID sign-in and audit logs if the technique involves an identity or cloud resource."
    ],
    "generic": [
      "Confirm whether the observed virtualization/sandbox evasion activity matches expected administrative or application behaviour.",
      "Identify the host, account, or resource where the activity occurred and its business criticality.",
      "Check for related alerts before and after this activity to reconstruct the broader intrusion timeline.",
      "Real detection reference: \"Virtual Machine Fingerprinting\" -- An adversary may attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware. This rule identifies common locations used to discover virtual machine hardware by a non-root user. This technique has been used by the Pupy RAT and other malware."
    ]
  },
  "evidence_to_collect": [
    "Host or resource affected",
    "Account or identity involved",
    "Timestamp of the activity",
    "Related process, file, or network artifact",
    "Any preceding or follow-on alerts"
  ],
  "response_actions": [
    {
      "name": "Contain the affected host or account",
      "category": "Containment",
      "risk": "Medium",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "Defender for Endpoint / Entra ID",
      "notes": "Requires approval -- confirm malicious intent before isolating a host or disabling an account."
    },
    {
      "name": "Collect and preserve evidence",
      "category": "Investigation",
      "risk": "Low",
      "automation_safe": true,
      "approval_required": false,
      "tool": "Defender for Endpoint",
      "notes": "Safe -- read-only evidence collection."
    }
  ],
  "queries": {
    "kql": [
      {
        "name": "Starting point for T1497",
        "description": "Generic starting query -- tune to the specific data source relevant to this technique.",
        "query": "DeviceEvents\n| where TimeGenerated > ago(24h)\n| where ActionType has \"<tune to T1497>\""
      }
    ],
    "spl": [],
    "esql": [
      {
        "name": "5b03c9fb-9945-4d2f-9568-fd690fee3fba — Virtual Machine Fingerprinting",
        "description": "(EQL) An adversary may attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware. This rule identifies common locations used to discover virtual machine hardware by a non-root user. This technique has been used by the Pupy RAT and other malware. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "process where host.os.type == \"linux\" and event.type == \"start\" and \nevent.action in (\"exec\", \"exec_event\", \"start\", \"ProcessRollup2\", \"process_started\") and\nprocess.args in (\n  \"/sys/class/dmi/id/bios_version\", \"/sys/class/dmi/id/product_name\", \"/sys/class/dmi/id/chassis_vendor\",\n  \"/proc/scsi/scsi\", \"/proc/ide/hd0/model\"\n) and not (\n  user.name == \"root\" or\n  ?process.parent.name in (\"LinkManager.exe\", \"saposcol\", \"svc_snow_discovery\") or\n  ?process.working_directory == \"/home/qualys\" or\n  ?process.parent.executable in (\n    \"/usr/sara/sbin/sys2prometheus\", \"/usr/sara/sbin/sys2ganglia\", \"/usr/libexec/valgrind/memcheck-amd64-linux\",\n    \"/var/lib/cfengine3/modules/init_node\", \"/opt/emby-server/system/EmbyServer\"\n  )\n)"
      },
      {
        "name": "d22a85c6-d2ad-4cc4-bf7b-54787473669a — Potential Microsoft Office Sandbox Evasion",
        "description": "(EQL) Identifies the creation of a suspicious zip file prepended with special characters. Sandboxed Microsoft Office applications on macOS are allowed to write files that start with special characters, which can be combined with an AutoStart location to achieve sandbox evasion. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "file where host.os.type == \"macos\" and event.action in (\"modification\", \"rename\") and file.name like~ \"~$*.zip\""
      }
    ]
  },
  "automation": {
    "safe": [
      "Add recommendation as Sentinel incident comment.",
      "Run enrichment queries.",
      "Create ServiceNow SecOps task."
    ],
    "approval_required": [
      "Contain or disable the affected host/account.",
      "Any change to production configuration."
    ]
  },
  "escalation_criteria": [
    "Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion activity observed on a privileged account or critical system.",
    "Activity follows or precedes other suspicious behaviour in the same investigation.",
    "Automated triage cannot confidently rule out malicious intent."
  ],
  "false_positive_considerations": [
    "Legitimate administrative or maintenance activity matching this pattern.",
    "Approved security testing or red team exercise.",
    "Known benign software producing similar telemetry."
  ],
  "confluence": {
    "title": "T1497 - Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}