Detection: Shai-Hulud 2 Exfiltration Artifact Files

Updated Date: 2025-11-25 ID: 9e7d3c0f-4a5b-6c8d-1e2f-3a4b5c6d7e8f Author: Michael Haag, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

Detects creation of exfiltration artifact files associated with Shai-Hulud 2.0 npm supply chain malware. The malware creates cloud.json, contents.json, environment.json, truffleSecrets.json, and actionsSecrets.json files containing harvested credentials from AWS, Azure, GCP, GitHub secrets, and environment variables. These files are staged before being pushed to attacker-controlled repositories.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
 3
 4from datamodel=Endpoint.Filesystem where
 5
 6Filesystem.file_name IN (
 7  "cloud.json",
 8  "contents.json",
 9  "environment.json",
10  "truffleSecrets.json",
11  "actionsSecrets.json"
12)
13
14by Filesystem.action Filesystem.dest Filesystem.file_access_time Filesystem.file_create_time
15   Filesystem.file_hash Filesystem.file_modify_time Filesystem.file_name Filesystem.file_path Filesystem.file_acl Filesystem.file_size Filesystem.process_guid Filesystem.process_id Filesystem.user
16   Filesystem.vendor_product
17
18
19| `drop_dm_object_name(Filesystem)`
20
21| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
22
23| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
24
25| `shai_hulud_2_exfiltration_artifact_files_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Sysmon EventID 11	Windows	`'XmlWinEventLog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`
Sysmon for Linux EventID 11	Linux	`'sysmon:linux'`	`'Syslog:Linux-Sysmon/Operational'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
security_content_ctime	`convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)`
shai_hulud_2_exfiltration_artifact_files_filter	`search *`

shai_hulud_2_exfiltration_artifact_files_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1074.001	Local Data Staging	Collection
T1552.001	Credentials In Files	Credential Access
T1195.002	Compromise Software Supply Chain	Initial Access

Delivery

Exploitation

DE.CM

CIS 10

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Notable	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type TTP. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting and generate Notable Events.

Implementation

The detection is based on data that originates from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents. These agents are designed to provide security-related telemetry from the endpoints where the agent is installed. To implement this search, you must ingest logs that contain filesystem events, specifically file creation events. These logs must be processed using the appropriate Splunk Technology Add-ons that are specific to the EDR product. The logs must also be mapped to the Filesystem node of the Endpoint data model. Use the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to normalize the field names and speed up the data modeling process.

Known False Positives

Low but possible. Generic filenames like cloud.json or environment.json may appear in legitimate contexts. Correlate with npm install activity or suspicious parent processes.

Associated Analytic Story

NPM Supply Chain Compromise

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Shai-Hulud 2.0 exfiltration artifact $file_name$ created on $dest$

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
dest	system	35	file_name

References

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`Syslog:Linux-Sysmon/Operational`	`sysmon:linux`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`Syslog:Linux-Sysmon/Operational`	`sysmon:linux`

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 1