THOR as a Web Service
On-premise THOR scan service, which is able to process thousands of samples per minute sent from any device within the network.

We are proud to announce a groundbreaking new scan mode named “Thunderstorm” that we’ve integrated into preview builds of the upcoming THOR version 10.6.

This mode of operation turns THOR into a RESTful web service that is able to process thousands of samples per minute sent from any device within the network.

Think of it as your ultra-fast on-premise scan service, wich is bundled with more than 25,000 hand-crafted YARA rules focusing on persistent threats and forensic artefacts.

Collect files and submit them for analysis from any operating system and any hardware platform. The possibilities are limitless.

Thunder rolls, lightning strikes & the hammer flies across the sky.
God of the weather,
chariot of the storm,
master of rain & torrents.
Son of the strength
of Mother Earth,
I ask you to grant me that strength for myself.

Norse Poem

What is THOR Thunderstorm?

A RESTful web service that receives samples and returns a scan result. It is feature-rich and very fast.

Use Cases

Use Case 1 – Remote File Collection

During forensic investigations, automated file collection (ESI) from one or multiple remote systems can be combined with THOR Thunderstorm to improve the forensic anylsis.

Alerts and warnings produced by THOR Thunderstorm highlight interesting elements in file data, registry hives, eventlog files and more.

Use Case 2 – ICS Networks

ICS networks are mission critical, requiring immediate and high-availability. The installation of an endpoint agent or running a portable scanner is often out of question.

With THOR Thunderstorm, you just have to collect and submit the files.

Use Case 3 – Out of Reach Devices

Since file collection is a lot easier than endpoint scanning, all you need is way to export the remote system’s files or directly send them to THOR Thunderstorm.

Imagine that you can collect and submit files from network devices, telephone systems or embedded devices.

Use Case 4 – Out of Reach Operating Systems

File collection scripts for many old or usually unsupported operating systems allow you to upload samples for analysis.

Select files based on size, age or type and schedule frequent upload tasks to analyze only new or modified files.

Use Case 5 – S3 Bucket Scanning

We’ve been working with our partner Adolus to showcase a tuned version of AirBnb’s BinaryAlert in which the standard YARA analyzer has been replaced by THOR Thunderstorm.

By using it in a container that scales with the demand, you can process millions of files in a few minutes.

Flexibility

Most operating system provide tools to walk the file system and submit files via HTTP. The following examples are intentionally short and compact to inspire you with their simplicity. Think of all devices that you could analyze this way. No agent, no portable scanner, just simple file submission via HTTP.

Windows 10 Batch

This example shows a simple batch file that walks recursively over a given folder an submits all files. You could extend it to the whole disk and reduce the submission to certain file extensions (e.g. exe, bat, ps1, js).

Linux Web Server

This examples shows how easy it is to get all files in a web server root checked by THOR Thunderstorm just by using bash, find and curl.

 

Thunderstorm Components

The following slide lists the different components that can be used with THOR Thunderstorm. We provide a server installer script, collectors, a Python API client and update scripts. 

In addition to the Thunderstorm server we provide a set of simple sample collection tools called Thunderstorm Collectors, a Python-based API library with command line client and a set of helper scripts

Thunderstorm Collectors

The Thunderstorm Collector repository contains a Go based collector, precompiled for many different operating systems and architectures as well as collectors scripts (Batch, Bash, PowerShell).

We have pre-build collectors for Windows, Linux, macOS, AIX, Solaris on x86, x64, Arm, PowerPC, MIPS, RISC-V, Plan9, S390x (IBM Z) architectures.

These collectors allow you select files based on age, size and type for submission to a Thunderstorm server.

It is easy to set up a task like: 

“Select all files that have been created or modified within the last 24 hours and submit them to Thunderstorm for analysis. Run this task daily.”

Low CPU and RAM Usage

A collection task requires 0.75-2% of the CPU and 20MB memory.

Any OS, Any Arch

Our collectors run on any operating system and processor architecture

High Speed

It allows ultra fast collection runs. (Our tests: Win 10, collect last 3 days, any type, full disk = 3 minutes run)

Thunderstorm API Client

We provide a Python module and Python based API client that supports multi-threaded submission to the THOR Thunderstorm service.

Modes of Operation

Service Mode

The service can be started in two scan modes:

  • Pure YARA
  • Full-Featured

Pure YARA

In the pure YARA mode (–pure-yara) THOR Thunderstorm only applies the 25,000 internal and all custom YARA rules to the submitted samples. It’s leightweight and super fast.

Full-Featured

The full-featured mode is the default. In this mode Thunderstorm also parses and analyses Windows Eventlogs (EVTX), registry hives, memory dumps, Windows error reports (WER) and more. It’s not just a YARA scan, but a full forensic processing.

More Features

Completely On Premise

THOR Thunderstorm can be installed on any internal system and runs as a service within your network

Sample Storage

Store suspicious or all transmitted samples with a reference to the source system to facilitate the deeper analysis

Forensic Modules

THOR Thunderstorm supports the analysis of different file types that get collected for forensic analysis purposes (e.g. EVTX files, Registry Hives)

Custom Signatures and IOCs

Add you own YARA signatures, Sigma rules, hash and filename IOCs and apply them to incoming samples

SIEM Integration

THOR Thunderstorm offers many ways to output information (Text, JSON, Syslog), which makes it easy to integrate the findings into your favorite SIEM system

Web GUI and API Documentation

The API documentation is embedded into the web service itself. You can even send requests right from the browser to test it live.

The Web GUI contains important information about the service like the signature set version, uptime, number of processed and queued samples and much more. 

It contains some graphs that help you to assess the actual server load and processing speed. 

It also contains links to the API documentation, the Python API library and the Thunderstorm Collectors for your convenience. 

 

On The Roadmap

The following tasks are on our roadmap for THOR Thunderstorm

  • Collector service that uses file system notifications to submit new files in real-time
  • Cortex Analyzer already available – link
  • ICAP Support (allows interfacing with Web Proxies)
  • File format support: PCAP, MFT
  • Recursive extraction of nested archives
  • Docker setup guide
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