LSA PPL Protection Setting Modification via CommandLine

Detects modification of LSA PPL protection settings via CommandLine. It may indicate an attempt to disable protection and enable credential dumping tools to access LSASS process memory.

Sigma rule (View on GitHub)

 1title: LSA PPL Protection Setting Modification via CommandLine
 2id: 8c0eca51-0f88-4db2-9183-fdfb10c703f9
 3status: test
 4description: |
 5    Detects modification of LSA PPL protection settings via CommandLine.
 6    It may indicate an attempt to disable protection and enable credential dumping tools to access LSASS process memory.    
 7references:
 8    - https://thedfirreport.com/2022/03/21/apt35-automates-initial-access-using-proxyshell/
 9    - https://github.com/shoober420/windows11-scripts/blob/38d83331738cd713ccb42f2c4557d17a27aefd98/Windows11Tweaks.bat#L1825
10author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
11date: 2022-03-22
12modified: 2026-03-13
13tags:
14    - attack.defense-evasion
15    - attack.t1562.010
16logsource:
17    category: process_creation
18    product: windows
19detection:
20    selection_img:
21        - Image|endswith:
22              - '\reg.exe'
23              - '\powershell.exe'
24              - '\pwsh.exe'
25        - OriginalFileName:
26              - 'reg.exe'
27              - 'powershell.exe'
28              - 'pwsh.dll'
29    selection_cli_action:
30        CommandLine|contains|all:
31            - 'ControlSet'
32            - '\Control\Lsa'
33        CommandLine|contains:
34            - 'Set-ItemProperty'
35            - 'New-ItemProperty'
36            - ' add '
37    selection_key:
38        CommandLine|contains:
39            - 'IsPplAutoEnabled'
40            - 'RunAsPPL'
41            - 'RunAsPPLBoot'
42    condition: all of selection_*
43falsepositives:
44    - Unlikely
45level: medium

References

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