Service Control Manager Spawning Command Shell with Suspect Strings

The following pseudo detector should generate an alert when services.exe spawns cmd.exe along with a corresponding echo or /c command, which are common attributes of post exploitation that we’ve seen in association with this technique. Part of the RedCanary 2024 Threat Detection Report.

Sigma rule (View on GitHub)

 1title: Service Control Manager Spawning Command Shell with Suspect Strings
 2id: cdf9f0ba-857a-4f91-9f30-724ade93b797
 3status: experimental
 4description: |
 5    The following pseudo detector should generate an alert when services.exe spawns 
 6    cmd.exe along with a corresponding echo or /c command, which are common attributes 
 7    of post exploitation that we’ve seen in association with this technique. Part of 
 8    the RedCanary 2024 Threat Detection Report.    
 9references:
10    - https://redcanary.com/threat-detection-report/techniques/windows-command-shell/
11author: RedCanary, Sigma formatting by Micah Babinski
12date: 2024/03/21
13tags:
14    - attack.execution
15    - attack.t1059
16    - attack.t1059.003
17    - attack.t1569
18    - attack.t1569.002
19logsource:
20    category: process_creation
21    product: windows
22detection:
23    selection:
24        ParentImage|endswith: '\services.exe'
25        Image|endswith: '\cmd.exe'
26        CommandLine|contains:
27            - 'echo'
28            - '/c'
29    condition: selection
30falsepositives:
31    - Unknown
32level: low```

References

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