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Clearing Windows Console History

Elastic Stack Serverless Security

Identifies when a user attempts to clear console history. An adversary may clear the command history of a compromised account to conceal the actions undertaken during an intrusion.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*
  • logs-windows.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

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
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 2

Rule authors:

  • Austin Songer

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define event.ingested and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate event.ingested to @timestamp for this rule to work.

Rule query

process where event.action == "start" and
  (process.name : ("powershell.exe", "pwsh.exe", "powershell_ise.exe") or process.pe.original_file_name == "PowerShell.EXE") and
     (process.args : "*Clear-History*" or
     (process.args : ("*Remove-Item*", "rm") and process.args : ("*ConsoleHost_history.txt*", "*(Get-PSReadlineOption).HistorySavePath*")) or
     (process.args : "*Set-PSReadlineOption*" and process.args : "*SaveNothing*"))

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM