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Parent Process PID Spoofing

Elastic Stack Serverless Security

Identifies parent process spoofing used to thwart detection. Adversaries may spoof the parent process identifier (PPID) of a new process to evade process-monitoring defenses or to elevate privileges.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • logs-endpoint.events.*

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
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 101

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

/* This rule is compatible with Elastic Endpoint only */

sequence by host.id, user.id with maxspan=3m

 [process where event.type == "start" and
  process.Ext.token.integrity_level_name != "system" and
  (
    process.pe.original_file_name : ("winword.exe", "excel.exe", "outlook.exe", "powerpnt.exe", "eqnedt32.exe",
                                     "fltldr.exe", "mspub.exe", "msaccess.exe", "powershell.exe", "pwsh.exe",
                                     "cscript.exe", "wscript.exe", "rundll32.exe", "regsvr32.exe", "msbuild.exe",
                                     "mshta.exe", "wmic.exe", "cmstp.exe", "msxsl.exe") or

    (process.executable : ("?:\\Users\\*.exe",
                           "?:\\ProgramData\\*.exe",
                           "?:\\Windows\\Temp\\*.exe",
                           "?:\\Windows\\Tasks\\*") and
      (process.code_signature.exists == false or process.code_signature.status : "errorBadDigest")) or

    process.executable : "?:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\*.exe"
  ) and

  not process.executable :
             ("?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFaultSecure.exe",
              "?:\\WINDOWS\\SysWOW64\\WerFaultSecure.exe",
              "?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFault.exe",
              "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\WerFault.exe")
  ] by process.pid
 [process where event.type == "start" and
  process.parent.Ext.real.pid > 0 and

  /* process.parent.Ext.real.pid is only populated if the parent process pid doesn't match */
  not (process.name : "msedge.exe" and process.parent.name : "sihost.exe") and

   not process.executable :
             ("?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFaultSecure.exe",
              "?:\\WINDOWS\\SysWOW64\\WerFaultSecure.exe",
              "?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFault.exe",
              "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\WerFault.exe")
 ] by process.parent.Ext.real.pid

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM