DFIR Playbook • Threat Hunting Automation

      Automate Your Threat Hunting: AmCache-EvilHunter Instantly Checks Windows Execution Artifacts Against VirusTotal & OpenTIP    

By CyberDudeBivash • October 04, 2025 • Technical Guide

 cyberdudebivash.com |       cyberbivash.blogspot.com 

Share on XShare on LinkedIn

Disclosure: This is a technical guide for Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) professionals. It contains affiliate links to relevant security solutions and training. Your support helps fund our independent research.

 Playbook: Table of Contents 

1. Chapter 1: The Analyst’s Bottleneck — The Agony of Manual Hash Lookups
2. Chapter 2: The Automation Engine — How AmCache-EvilHunter Works
3. Chapter 3: The Playbook — A 3-Step Workflow for Automated Enrichment
4. Chapter 4: Interpreting the Results — From Data to Actionable Intelligence

Chapter 1: The Analyst’s Bottleneck — The Agony of Manual Hash Lookups

You’re in the middle of a critical incident response. You’ve acquired the AmCache, a forensic gold mine of execution evidence. As we detailed in our **foundational guide to AmCache forensics**, this file contains the SHA1 hash of hundreds of programs that have run on the system. Now comes the pain. A junior analyst is tasked with manually copying and pasting every single one of these hashes into threat intelligence portals like VirusTotal. It’s a slow, soul-crushing, and error-prone process that can take hours or days, during which the attacker is still active in your network. This manual bottleneck is unacceptable in modern DFIR. The solution is automation.

Chapter 2: The Automation Engine — How AmCache-EvilHunter Works

The AmCache-EvilHunter framework is designed to eliminate this bottleneck. It’s a command-line tool that automates the entire enrichment process.

Core Functionality:

1. Automated Parsing:** It ingests the `Amcache.hve` file and automatically extracts all relevant program execution entries, including file paths, timestamps, and SHA1 hashes.
2. **Multi-API Enrichment:** This is the core of its power. It takes the list of hashes and queries multiple threat intelligence APIs in parallel:
   • **VirusTotal API:** To get the detection ratio from over 70 antivirus engines.
   • **Kaspersky OpenTIP API:** To get expert-level context, including threat categorization (e.g., ‘Trojan’, ‘Adware’), known malware family names, and worldwide prevalence.
3. **Prioritized Output:** It correlates the results and generates a single, prioritized report. Any hash with a high number of detections or a ‘Dangerous’ classification from OpenTIP is flagged and moved to the top.

This transforms hours of manual labor into a few seconds of automated work.

Chapter 3: The Playbook — A 3-Step Workflow for Automated Enrichment

Integrating this into your IR process is straightforward.

Step 1: Acquire the AmCache Hive

Use your live response tool or forensic imager to acquire the `Amcache.hve` file from `%SystemRoot%\AppCompat\Programs\` on the target system.

Step 2: Execute the Automated Scan

Run the tool from your analysis workstation, providing your API keys.

$ python AmCache-EvilHunter.py -f Amcache.hve --vt-api [KEY] --otip-api [KEY] -o report.json

Step 3: Triage the Prioritized Output

Instead of a raw list of hundreds of files, you now have a short, prioritized list of high-confidence suspicious and malicious files. Your investigation starts with the first item on this list.

 Master the Craft: Deep Windows forensics and the use of scripting for automation are essential skills for any modern DFIR professional. A certification like the **CHFI (Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator)** provides the deep, hands-on training to master these techniques.  

Chapter 4: Interpreting the Results — From Data to Actionable Intelligence

The report from a tool like this is not the end of the investigation; it is the start of the hunt. When the tool returns a high-confidence finding, you must pivot.

Example Scenario:

The AmCache-EvilHunter report flags the following top entry:

{
  "FileName": "msupdate.exe",
  "FilePath": "C:\\Users\\John.Doe\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\msupdate.exe",
  "SHA1": "...",
  "VT_Detections": "62/71",
  "Kaspersky_OpenTIP": {
    "Status": "Dangerous",
    "Threat": "Backdoor.Win64.AnonDoor.a"
  }
}

This is your “smoking gun.” The next step is to pivot to your **EDR platform**. You now have a filename, a path, and a hash. You can use your EDR to answer the critical questions:

• What was the parent process of `msupdate.exe`? (How did it start?)
• What network connections did `msupdate.exe` make? (Where is the C2 server?)
• What other files did it create or modify? (Has it deployed other payloads?)

The automated AmCache analysis gives you the “what”; your EDR gives you the “how” and “where next.”

Get Elite DFIR & Threat Hunting Playbooks

Subscribe for advanced hunting guides, malware analysis, and strategic insights.         Subscribe  

About the Author

CyberDudeBivash is a cybersecurity strategist with 15+ years in Digital Forensics (DFIR), incident response, and threat hunting, advising CISOs and SOC teams across APAC. [Last Updated: October 04, 2025]

  #CyberDudeBivash #DFIR #WindowsForensics #AmCache #ThreatHunting #IncidentResponse #CyberSecurity #InfoSec #EDR #Automation