Suspicious Microsoft Diagnostics Wizard Executionedit
Identifies potential abuse of the Microsoft Diagnostics Troubleshooting Wizard (MSDT) to proxy malicious command or binary execution via malicious process arguments.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- logs-endpoint.events.process-*
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-windows.*
- endgame-*
Severity: high
Risk score: 73
Runs every: 5m
Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time
)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
References:
Tags:
- Domain: Endpoint
- OS: Windows
- Use Case: Threat Detection
- Tactic: Defense Evasion
- Data Source: Elastic Endgame
- Data Source: Elastic Defend
Version: 109
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Setupedit
Setup
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 version 8.2.
Hence for this rule to work effectively, users will need to add a custom ingest pipeline to populate
event.ingested
to @timestamp.
For more details on adding a custom ingest pipeline refer - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/data-streams-pipeline-tutorial.html
Rule queryedit
process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" or process.name : "msdt.exe") and ( process.args : ("IT_RebrowseForFile=*", "ms-msdt:/id", "ms-msdt:-id", "*FromBase64*") or (process.args : "-af" and process.args : "/skip" and process.parent.name : ("explorer.exe", "cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "cscript.exe", "wscript.exe", "mshta.exe", "rundll32.exe", "regsvr32.exe") and process.args : ("?:\\WINDOWS\\diagnostics\\index\\PCWDiagnostic.xml", "PCWDiagnostic.xml", "?:\\Users\\Public\\*", "?:\\Windows\\Temp\\*")) or (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" and not process.name : "msdt.exe" and process.name != null) or (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" and not process.executable : ("?:\\Windows\\system32\\msdt.exe", "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\msdt.exe")) )
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
-
Technique:
- Name: System Binary Proxy Execution
- ID: T1218
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/