Windows Defender Disabled via Registry Modification
Identifies modifications to the Windows Defender registry settings to disable the service or set the service to be started manually.
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:
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- Windows
- Threat Detection
- Defense Evasion
Version: 5
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Detections should be investigated to identify if the hosts and users are authorized to use this tool. As this rule detects post-exploitation process activity, investigations into this should be prioritized.
If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define event.ingested and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate event.ingested to @timestamp for this rule to work.
registry where event.type in ("creation", "change") and
(
(
registry.path:"HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows Defender\\DisableAntiSpyware" and
registry.data.strings: ("1", "0x00000001")
) or
(
registry.path:"HKLM\\System\\*ControlSet*\\Services\\WinDefend\\Start" and
registry.data.strings in ("3", "4", "0x00000003", "0x00000004")
)
)
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Impair Defenses
- ID: T1562
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Disable or Modify Tools
- ID: T1562.001
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/001/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Indicator Blocking
- ID: T1562.006
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/006/