Potential Port Monitor or Print Processor Registration Abuse
Elastic Stack Serverless Security
Identifies port monitor and print processor registry modifications. Adversaries may abuse port monitor and print processors to run malicious DLLs during system boot that will be executed as SYSTEM for privilege escalation and/or persistence, if permissions allow writing a fully-qualified pathname for that DLL.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- logs-endpoint.events.*
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
- Privilege Escalation
Version: 101
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
registry where event.type in ("creation", "change") and
registry.path : ("HKLM\\SYSTEM\\*ControlSet*\\Control\\Print\\Monitors\\*",
"HKLM\\SYSTEM\\*ControlSet*\\Control\\Print\\Environments\\Windows*\\Print Processors\\*") and
registry.data.strings : "*.dll" and
/* exclude SYSTEM SID - look for changes by non-SYSTEM user */
not user.id : "S-1-5-18"
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
Tactic:
- Name: Privilege Escalation
- ID: TA0004
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0004/
Technique:
- Name: Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
- ID: T1547
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Port Monitors
- ID: T1547.010
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/010/
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
- ID: T1547
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Port Monitors
- ID: T1547.010
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/010/