Delete Volume USN Journal with Fsutil
Elastic Stack Serverless Security
Identifies use of the fsutil.exe to delete the volume USNJRNL. This technique is used by attackers to eliminate evidence of files created during post-exploitation activities.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-endpoint.events.*
- logs-windows.*
Severity: low
Risk score: 21
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: None
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- Windows
- Threat Detection
- Defense Evasion
Version: 10
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
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.
process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
(process.name : "fsutil.exe" or process.pe.original_file_name == "fsutil.exe") and
process.args : "deletejournal" and process.args : "usn"
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Indicator Removal on Host
- ID: T1070
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1070/
Sub-technique:
- Name: File Deletion
- ID: T1070.004
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1070/004/