Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement via MSHTA
Elastic Stack Serverless Security
Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to execute commands from a remote host, which are launched via the HTA Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally while attempting to evading detection.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-endpoint.events.*
- logs-windows.*
Severity: high
Risk score: 73
Runs every: 5m
Searches indices from: now-9m (https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/common-options.html#date-math[Date Math format], see also Additional look-back time)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
References:
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- Windows
- Threat Detection
- Lateral Movement
Version: 4
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
sequence with maxspan=1m
[process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.name : "mshta.exe" and process.args : "-Embedding"
] by host.id, process.entity_id
[network where event.type == "start" and process.name : "mshta.exe" and
network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and network.transport == "tcp" and
source.port > 49151 and destination.port > 49151 and not source.address in ("127.0.0.1", "::1")
] by host.id, process.entity_id
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
Tactic:
- Name: Lateral Movement
- ID: TA0008
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0008/
Technique:
- Name: Remote Services
- ID: T1021
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Distributed Component Object Model
- ID: T1021.003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/003/
Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Signed Binary Proxy Execution
- ID: T1218
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Mshta
- ID: T1218.005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/005/