Elastic
Start free trial
Loading

Execution of Persistent Suspicious Program

Elastic Stack Serverless Security

Identifies execution of suspicious persistent programs (scripts, rundll32, etc.) by looking at process lineage and command line usage.

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: None

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Windows
  • Threat Detection
  • Persistence

Version: 101

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

/* userinit followed by explorer followed by early child process of explorer (unlikely to be launched interactively) within 1m */
sequence by host.id, user.name with maxspan=1m
  [process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "userinit.exe" and process.parent.name : "winlogon.exe"]
  [process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "explorer.exe"]
  [process where event.type == "start" and process.parent.name : "explorer.exe" and
   /* add suspicious programs here */
   process.pe.original_file_name in ("cscript.exe",
                                     "wscript.exe",
                                     "PowerShell.EXE",
                                     "MSHTA.EXE",
                                     "RUNDLL32.EXE",
                                     "REGSVR32.EXE",
                                     "RegAsm.exe",
                                     "MSBuild.exe",
                                     "InstallUtil.exe") and
    /* add potential suspicious paths here */
    process.args : ("C:\\Users\\*", "C:\\ProgramData\\*", "C:\\Windows\\Temp\\*", "C:\\Windows\\Tasks\\*", "C:\\PerfLogs\\*", "C:\\Intel\\*")
   ]

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM