Windows Network Enumeration

 1[metadata]
 2creation_date = "2020/12/04"
 3integration = ["endpoint", "windows"]
 4maturity = "production"
 5min_stack_comments = "New fields added: required_fields, related_integrations, setup"
 6min_stack_version = "8.3.0"
 7updated_date = "2023/06/22"
 8
 9[rule]
10author = ["Elastic"]
11description = "Identifies attempts to enumerate hosts in a network using the built-in Windows net.exe tool."
12from = "now-9m"
13index = ["logs-endpoint.events.*", "winlogbeat-*", "logs-windows.*", "endgame-*"]
14language = "eql"
15license = "Elastic License v2"
16name = "Windows Network Enumeration"
17note = """## Triage and analysis
18
19### Investigating Windows Network Enumeration
20
21After successfully compromising an environment, attackers may try to gain situational awareness to plan their next steps. This can happen by running commands to enumerate network resources, users, connections, files, and installed security software.
22
23This rule looks for the execution of the `net` utility to enumerate servers in the environment that hosts shared drives or printers. This information is useful to attackers as they can identify targets for lateral movements and search for valuable shared data.
24
25#### Possible investigation steps
26
27- Investigate the process execution chain (parent process tree) for unknown processes. Examine their executable files for prevalence, whether they are located in expected locations, and if they are signed with valid digital signatures.
28- Identify the user account that performed the action and whether it should perform this kind of action.
29- Investigate other alerts associated with the user/host during the past 48 hours.
30- Investigate any abnormal account behavior, such as command executions, file creations or modifications, and network connections.
31
32### False positive analysis
33
34- Discovery activities are not inherently malicious if they occur in isolation. As long as the analyst did not identify suspicious activity related to the user or host, such alerts can be dismissed.
35
36### Response and remediation
37
38- Initiate the incident response process based on the outcome of the triage.
39- Isolate the involved hosts to prevent further post-compromise behavior.
40- Investigate credential exposure on systems compromised or used by the attacker to ensure all compromised accounts are identified. Reset passwords for these accounts and other potentially compromised credentials, such as email, business systems, and web services.
41- Run a full antimalware scan. This may reveal additional artifacts left in the system, persistence mechanisms, and malware components.
42- Determine the initial vector abused by the attacker and take action to prevent reinfection through the same vector.
43- Using the incident response data, update logging and audit policies to improve the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the mean time to respond (MTTR).
44
45## Setup
46
47If 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.
48"""
49risk_score = 47
50rule_id = "7b8bfc26-81d2-435e-965c-d722ee397ef1"
51severity = "medium"
52tags = ["Domain: Endpoint", "OS: Windows", "Use Case: Threat Detection", "Tactic: Discovery", "Resources: Investigation Guide", "Data Source: Elastic Endgame", "Data Source: Elastic Defend"]
53timestamp_override = "event.ingested"
54type = "eql"
55
56query = '''
57process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
58  ((process.name : "net.exe" or process.pe.original_file_name == "net.exe") or
59   ((process.name : "net1.exe" or process.pe.original_file_name == "net1.exe") and
60       not process.parent.name : "net.exe")) and
61  (process.args : "view" or (process.args : "time" and process.args : "\\\\*"))
62
63
64  /* expand when ancestry is available
65  and not descendant of [process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "cmd.exe" and
66                           ((process.parent.name : "userinit.exe") or
67                            (process.parent.name : "gpscript.exe") or
68                            (process.parent.name : "explorer.exe" and
69                               process.args : "C:\\*\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Startup\\*.bat*"))]
70  */
71'''
72
73
74[[rule.threat]]
75framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
76[[rule.threat.technique]]
77id = "T1018"
78name = "Remote System Discovery"
79reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1018/"
80
81[[rule.threat.technique]]
82id = "T1135"
83name = "Network Share Discovery"
84reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1135/"
85
86
87[rule.threat.tactic]
88id = "TA0007"
89name = "Discovery"
90reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0007/"