Connection to Commonly Abused Free SSL Certificate Providers

Elastic Stack Serverless Security

Identifies unusual processes connecting to domains using known free SSL certificates. Adversaries may employ a known encryption algorithm to conceal command and control traffic.

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
Command and Control

Version: 101

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

Rule query

		network where network.protocol == "dns" and
  /* Add new free SSL certificate provider domains here */
  dns.question.name : ("*letsencrypt.org", "*.sslforfree.com", "*.zerossl.com", "*.freessl.org") and

  /* Native Windows process paths that are unlikely to have network connections to domains secured using free SSL certificates */
  process.executable : ("C:\\Windows\\System32\\*.exe",
                        "C:\\Windows\\System\\*.exe",
	                  "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\*.exe",
		          "C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework*\\*.exe",
		          "C:\\Windows\\explorer.exe",
		          "C:\\Windows\\notepad.exe") and

  /* Insert noisy false positives here */
  not process.name : ("svchost.exe", "MicrosoftEdge*.exe", "msedge.exe")

	

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Tactic:
- Name: Command and Control
- ID: TA0011
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0011/
Technique:
- Name: Encrypted Channel
- ID: T1573
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1573/