Persistence via BITS Job Notify Cmdline

Elastic Stack Serverless Security

An adversary can use the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) SetNotifyCmdLine method to execute a program that runs after a job finishes transferring data or after a job enters a specified state in order to persist on a system.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

• logs-endpoint.events.*
• winlogbeat-*
• 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:

• https://pentestlab.blog/2019/10/30/persistence-bits-jobs/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/bits1_5/nf-bits1_5-ibackgroundcopyjob2-setnotifycmdline
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/bitsadmin-setnotifycmdline
• https://www.elastic.co/blog/hunting-for-persistence-using-elastic-security-part-2

Tags:

• Elastic
• Host
• Windows
• Threat Detection
• Persistence

Version: 101

Rule authors:

• Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

process where event.type == "start" and
  process.parent.name : "svchost.exe" and process.parent.args : "BITS" and
  not process.executable :
              ("?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFaultSecure.exe",
               "?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFault.exe",
               "?:\\Windows\\System32\\wermgr.exe",
               "?:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\directxdatabaseupdater.exe")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

• Tactic:

  • Name: Persistence
  • ID: TA0003
  • Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/

• Technique:

  • Name: BITS Jobs
  • ID: T1197
  • Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1197/