Detects the creation of a WMI Event Subscription. Attackers can abuse this mechanism for persistence or to elevate to SYSTEM privileges.

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Identifies execution of a suspicious program via scheduled tasks by looking at process lineage and command line usage.

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Identifies when one or more features on Microsoft Defender are disabled. Adversaries may disable or tamper with Microsoft Defender features to evade detection and conceal malicious behavior.

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Generates a detection alert for each external alert written to the configured indices. Enabling this rule allows you to immediately begin investigating external alerts in the app.

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This rule is triggered when CVEs collected from the Rapid7 Threat Command Integration have a match against vulnerabilities that were found in the customer environment.

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Indicates the creation of a scheduled task using Windows event logs. Adversaries can use these to establish persistence, move laterally, and/or escalate privileges.

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Indicates the update of a scheduled task using Windows event logs. Adversaries can use these to establish persistence, by changing the configuration of a legit scheduled task. Some changes such as disabling or enabling a scheduled task are common and may may generate noise.

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Identify access to sensitive Active Directory object attributes that contains credentials and decryption keys such as unixUserPassword, ms-PKI-AccountCredentials and msPKI-CredentialRoamingTokens.

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Detects the creation and modification of an account with the "Don't Expire Password" option Enabled. Attackers can abuse this misconfiguration to persist in the domain and maintain long-term access using compromised accounts with this property.

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Identifies when the SYSTEM account uses an account discovery utility. This could be a sign of discovery activity after an adversary has achieved privilege escalation.

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Identifies an attempt to reset a potentially privileged account password remotely. Adversaries may manipulate account passwords to maintain access or evade password duration policies and preserve compromised credentials.

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Identifies a user being added to an active directory group by the SYSTEM (S-1-5-18) user. This behavior can indicate that the attacker has achieved SYSTEM privileges in a domain controller, which attackers can obtain by exploiting vulnerabilities or abusing default group privileges (e.g., Server Operators), and is attempting to pivot to a domain account.

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Adversaries can add the 'hidden' attribute to files to hide them from the user in an attempt to evade detection.

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This rule detects the Active Directory query tool, AdFind.exe. AdFind has legitimate purposes, but it is frequently leveraged by threat actors to perform post-exploitation Active Directory reconnaissance. The AdFind tool has been observed in Trickbot, Ryuk, Maze, and FIN6 campaigns. For Winlogbeat, this rule requires Sysmon.

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Detects modifications in the AdminSDHolder object. Attackers can abuse the SDProp process to implement a persistent backdoor in Active Directory. SDProp compares the permissions on protected objects with those defined on the AdminSDHolder object. If the permissions on any of the protected accounts and groups do not match, the permissions on the protected accounts and groups are reset to match those of the domain's AdminSDHolder object, regaining their Administrative Privileges.

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Identifies a modification on the dsHeuristics attribute on the bit that holds the configuration of groups excluded from the SDProp process. The SDProp compares the permissions on protected objects with those defined on the AdminSDHolder object. If the permissions on any of the protected accounts and groups do not match, the permissions on the protected accounts and groups are reset to match those of the domain's AdminSDHolder object, meaning that groups excluded will remain unchanged. Attackers can abuse this misconfiguration to maintain long-term access to privileged accounts in these groups.

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Detects writing executable files that will be automatically launched by Adobe on launch.

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Identifies the creation of an Alternate Data Stream (ADS) at a volume root directory, which can indicate the attempt to hide tools and malware, as ADSs created in this directory are not displayed by system utilities.

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Searches for rare processes running on multiple hosts in an entire fleet or network. This reduces the detection of false positives since automated maintenance processes usually only run occasionally on a single machine but are common to all or many hosts in a fleet.

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Identifies unusual parent-child process relationships that can indicate malware execution or persistence mechanisms. Malicious scripts often call on other applications and processes as part of their exploit payload. For example, when a malicious Office document runs scripts as part of an exploit payload, Excel or Word may start a script interpreter process, which, in turn, runs a script that downloads and executes malware. Another common scenario is Outlook running an unusual process when malware is downloaded in an email. Monitoring and identifying anomalous process relationships is a method of detecting new and emerging malware that is not yet recognized by anti-virus scanners.

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Detects the execution of the VScode portable binary with the tunnel command line option indicating an attempt to establish a remote tunnel session to Github or a remote VScode instance.

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Detects attempts to install or use Kali Linux via Windows Subsystem for Linux. Adversaries may enable and use WSL for Linux to avoid detection.

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Identifies the install of browser extensions. Malicious browser extensions can be installed via app store downloads masquerading as legitimate extensions, social engineering, or by an adversary that has already compromised a system.

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Identifies User Account Control (UAC) bypass via eventvwr.exe. Attackers bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

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Identifies when a user attempts to clear console history. An adversary may clear the command history of a compromised account to conceal the actions undertaken during an intrusion.

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Identifies attempts to clear or disable Windows event log stores using Windows wevetutil command. This is often done by attackers in an attempt to evade detection or destroy forensic evidence on a system.

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Identifies attempts to disable/modify the code signing policy through system native utilities. Code signing provides authenticity on a program, and grants the user with the ability to check whether the program has been tampered with. By allowing the execution of unsigned or self-signed code, threat actors can craft and execute malicious code.

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Identifies attempts to disable the code signing policy through the registry. Code signing provides authenticity on a program, and grants the user with the ability to check whether the program has been tampered with. By allowing the execution of unsigned or self-signed code, threat actors can craft and execute malicious code.

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Identifies PowerShell.exe or Cmd.exe execution spawning from Windows Script Host processes Wscript.exe.

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Detects attempts to execute a command via the forfiles Windows utility. Adversaries may use this utility to proxy execution via a trusted parent process.

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A suspicious SolarWinds child process (Cmd.exe or Powershell.exe) was detected.

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Identifies cmd.exe making a network connection. Adversaries could abuse cmd.exe to download or execute malware from a remote URL.

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Identifies command shell activity started via RunDLL32, which is commonly abused by attackers to host malicious code.

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Detects when the Console Window Host (conhost.exe) process is spawned by a suspicious parent process, which could be indicative of code injection.

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Identifies unusual processes connecting to domains using known free SSL certificates. Adversaries may employ a known encryption algorithm to conceal command and control traffic.

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Identifies unusual instances of Control Panel with suspicious keywords or paths in the process command line value. Adversaries may abuse control.exe to proxy execution of malicious code.

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Active Directory Integrated DNS (ADIDNS) is one of the core components of AD DS, leveraging AD's access control and replication to maintain domain consistency. It stores DNS zones as AD objects, a feature that, while robust, introduces some security issues because of the default permission (Any authenticated users) to create DNS-named records. Attackers can perform Dynamic Spoofing attacks, where they monitor LLMNR/NBT-NS requests and create DNS-named records to target systems that are requested from multiple systems. They can also create specific records to target specific services, such as wpad, for spoofing attacks.

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Identifies the creation of a hidden local user account by appending the dollar sign to the account name. This is sometimes done by attackers to increase access to a system and avoid appearing in the results of accounts listing using the net users command.

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Detects the creation or modification of a new Group Policy based scheduled task or service. These methods are used for legitimate system administration, but can also be abused by an attacker with domain admin permissions to execute a malicious payload remotely on all or a subset of the domain joined machines.

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Identifies the creation or modification of Domain Backup private keys. Adversaries may extract the Data Protection API (DPAPI) domain backup key from a Domain Controller (DC) to be able to decrypt any domain user master key file.

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Identifies the creation or modification of a local trusted root certificate in Windows. The install of a malicious root certificate would allow an attacker the ability to masquerade malicious files as valid signed components from any entity (for example, Microsoft). It could also allow an attacker to decrypt SSL traffic.

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Identifies attempts to export a registry hive which may contain credentials using the Windows reg.exe tool.

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Identifies use of the fsutil.exe to delete the volume USNJRNL. This technique is used by attackers to eliminate evidence of files created during post-exploitation activities.

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Identifies use of the wbadmin.exe to delete the backup catalog. Ransomware and other malware may do this to prevent system recovery.

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Identifies attempts to disable EventLog via the logman Windows utility, PowerShell, or auditpol. This is often done by attackers in an attempt to evade detection on a system.

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Identifies use of the netsh.exe to disable or weaken the local firewall. Attackers will use this command line tool to disable the firewall during troubleshooting or to enable network mobility.

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User Account Control (UAC) can help mitigate the impact of malware on Windows hosts. With UAC, apps and tasks always run in the security context of a non-administrator account, unless an administrator specifically authorizes administrator-level access to the system. This rule identifies registry value changes to bypass User Access Control (UAC) protection.

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Identifies use of the Set-MpPreference PowerShell command to disable or weaken certain Windows Defender settings.

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Identifies changes to the DNS Global Query Block List (GQBL), a security feature that prevents the resolution of certain DNS names often exploited in attacks like WPAD spoofing. Attackers with certain privileges, such as DNSAdmins, can modify or disable the GQBL, allowing exploitation of hosts running WPAD with default settings for privilege escalation and lateral movement.

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Identifies when a user enables DNS-over-HTTPS. This can be used to hide internet activity or the process of exfiltrating data. With this enabled, an organization will lose visibility into data such as query type, response, and originating IP, which are used to determine bad actors.

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Identifies use of the netsh.exe program to enable host discovery via the network. Attackers can use this command-line tool to weaken the host firewall settings.

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Identifies registry write modifications to hide an encoded portable executable. This could be indicative of adversary defense evasion by avoiding the storing of malicious content directly on disk.

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Identifies use of WinRar or 7z to create an encrypted files. Adversaries will often compress and encrypt data in preparation for exfiltration.

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Identifies the use of dsquery.exe for domain trust discovery purposes. Adversaries may use this command-line utility to enumerate trust relationships that may be used for Lateral Movement opportunities in Windows multi-domain forest environments.

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Identifies the use of nltest.exe for domain trust discovery purposes. Adversaries may use this command-line utility to enumerate domain trusts and gain insight into trust relationships, as well as the state of Domain Controller (DC) replication in a Microsoft Windows NT Domain.

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Identifies native Windows host and network enumeration commands spawned by the Windows Management Instrumentation Provider Service (WMIPrvSE).

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Identifies instances of lower privilege accounts enumerating Administrator accounts or groups using built-in Windows tools.

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Identifies instances of an unusual process enumerating built-in Windows privileged local groups membership like Administrators or Remote Desktop users.

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Identifies the use of the Exchange PowerShell cmdlet, New-MailBoxExportRequest, to export the contents of a primary mailbox or archive to a .pst file. Adversaries may target user email to collect sensitive information.

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Masquerading can allow an adversary to evade defenses and better blend in with the environment. One way it occurs is when the name or location of a file is manipulated as a means of tricking a user into executing what they think is a benign file type but is actually executable code.

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Identifies process execution from suspicious default Windows directories. This may be abused by adversaries to hide malware in trusted paths.

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Windows Component Object Model (COM) is an inter-process communication (IPC) component of the native Windows application programming interface (API) that enables interaction between software objects or executable code. Xwizard can be used to run a COM object created in registry to evade defensive counter measures.

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Identifies a suspicious file that was written by a PDF reader application and subsequently executed. These processes are often launched via exploitation of PDF applications.

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Identifies execution of suspicious persistent programs (scripts, rundll32, etc.) by looking at process lineage and command line usage.

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Identifies the creation, change, or deletion of a DLL module within a Windows SxS local folder. Adversaries may abuse shared modules to execute malicious payloads by instructing the Windows module loader to load DLLs from arbitrary local paths.

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Identifies execution via MSSQL xp_cmdshell stored procedure. Malicious users may attempt to elevate their privileges by using xp_cmdshell, which is disabled by default, thus, it's important to review the context of it's use.

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Identifies execution from the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) shared mountpoint tsclient on the target host. This may indicate a lateral movement attempt.

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An adversary can use the Windows command line debugging utility cdb.exe to execute commands or shellcode. This rule looks for those instances and where the cdb.exe binary is outside of the normal WindowsKit installation paths.

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Detects attempts to execute a program on the host from the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Adversaries may enable and use WSL for Linux to avoid detection.

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Identifies the use of the Exchange PowerShell cmdlet, New-MailBoxExportRequest, to export the contents of a primary mailbox or archive to a .pst file. Adversaries may target user email to collect sensitive information.

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Identifies modification of a file creation time. Adversaries may modify file time attributes to blend malicious content with existing files. Timestomping is a technique that modifies the timestamps of a file often to mimic files that are in trusted directories.

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Identifies the creation or execution of files or processes with names containing the Right-to-Left Override (RTLO) character, which can be used to disguise the file extension and trick users into executing malicious files.

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Adversaries may install legitimate remote access tools (RAT) to compromised endpoints for further command-and-control (C2). Adversaries can rely on installed RATs for persistence, execution of native commands and more. This rule detects when a process is started whose name or code signature resembles commonly abused RATs. This is a New Terms rule type indicating the host has not seen this RAT process started before within the last 30 days.

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Identifies a new credentials logon type performed by an unusual process. This may indicate the existence of an access token forging capability that are often abused to bypass access control restrictions.

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Identifies newly seen removable devices by device friendly name using registry modification events. While this activity is not inherently malicious, analysts can use those events to aid monitoring for data exfiltration over those devices.

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This rule identifies when a User Account starts the Active Directory Replication Process for the first time. Attackers can use the DCSync technique to get credential information of individual accounts or the entire domain, thus compromising the entire domain.

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Identifies the enable of the full user-mode dumps feature system-wide. This feature allows Windows Error Reporting (WER) to collect data after an application crashes. This setting is a requirement for the LSASS Shtinkering attack, which fakes the communication of a crash on LSASS, generating a dump of the process memory, which gives the attacker access to the credentials present on the system without having to bring malware to the system. This setting is not enabled by default, and applications must create their registry subkeys to hold settings that enable them to collect dumps.

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Detects the first occurrence of a modification to Group Policy Object Attributes to add privileges to user accounts or use them to add users as local admins.

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Detects the usage of gpresult.exe to query group policy objects. Attackers may query group policy objects during the reconnaissance phase after compromising a system to gain a better understanding of the active directory environment and possible methods to escalate privileges or move laterally.

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This rule identifies a high number (10) of process terminations (stop, delete, or suspend) from the same host within a short time period.

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Detects files creation and modification on the host system from the the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Adversaries may enable and use WSL for Linux to avoid detection.

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The hosts file on endpoints is used to control manual IP address to hostname resolutions. The hosts file is the first point of lookup for DNS hostname resolution so if adversaries can modify the endpoint hosts file, they can route traffic to malicious infrastructure. This rule detects modifications to the hosts file on Microsoft Windows, Linux (Ubuntu or RHEL) and macOS systems.

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Identifies when Internet Information Services (IIS) HTTP Logging is disabled on a server. An attacker with IIS server access via a webshell or other mechanism can disable HTTP Logging as an effective anti-forensics measure.

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The Debugger and SilentProcessExit registry keys can allow an adversary to intercept the execution of files, causing a different process to be executed. This functionality can be abused by an adversary to establish persistence.

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Identifies abuse of the Windows Update Auto Update Client (wuauclt.exe) to load an arbitrary DLL. This behavior is used as a defense evasion technique to blend-in malicious activity with legitimate Windows software.

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Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to execute commands from a remote host, which are launched via the HTA Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally while attempting to evade detection.

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Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to run commands from a remote host, which are launched via the MMC20 Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally.

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Identifies use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to run commands from a remote host, which are launched via the ShellBrowserWindow or ShellWindows Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to stealthily move laterally.

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Identifies remote execution via Windows PowerShell remoting. Windows PowerShell remoting allows a user to run any Windows PowerShell command on one or more remote computers. This could be an indication of lateral movement.

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Identifies remote execution via Windows Remote Management (WinRM) remote shell on a target host. This could be an indication of lateral movement.

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Identifies the installation of custom Application Compatibility Shim databases. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.

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Identifies registry modifications related to the Windows Security Support Provider (SSP) configuration. Adversaries may abuse this to establish persistence in an environment.

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Identifies InstallUtil.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity as InstallUtil is often leveraged by adversaries to execute code and evade detection.

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Identifies interactive logon attempt with alternate credentials and by an unusual process. Adversaries may create a new token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

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Identifies the modification of an account's Kerberos pre-authentication options. An adversary with GenericWrite/GenericAll rights over the account can maliciously modify these settings to perform offline password cracking attacks such as AS-REP roasting.

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Identifies the creation of .kirbi files. The creation of this kind of file is an indicator of an attacker running Kerberos ticket dump utilities, such as Mimikatz, and precedes attacks such as Pass-The-Ticket (PTT), which allows the attacker to impersonate users using Kerberos tickets.

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Identifies the modification of the msDS-AllowedToDelegateTo attribute to KRBTGT. Attackers can use this technique to maintain persistence to the domain by having the ability to request tickets for the KRBTGT service.

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Identifies suspicious file creations in the startup folder of a remote system. An adversary could abuse this to move laterally by dropping a malicious script or executable that will be executed after a reboot or user logon.

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Identifies registry modification to the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy policy. If this value exists (which doesn't by default) and is set to 1, then remote connections from all local members of Administrators are granted full high-integrity tokens during negotiation.

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Indicates the creation of a scheduled task. Adversaries can use these to establish persistence, move laterally, and/or escalate privileges.

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Identifies the creation of a Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (lsass.exe) default memory dump. This may indicate a credential access attempt via trusted system utilities such as Task Manager (taskmgr.exe) and SQL Dumper (sqldumper.exe) or known pentesting tools such as Dumpert and AndrewSpecial.

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Identifies handle requests for the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) object access with specific access masks that many tools with a capability to dump memory to disk use (0x1fffff, 0x1010, 0x120089). This rule is tool agnostic as it has been validated against a host of various LSASS dump tools such as SharpDump, Procdump, Mimikatz, Comsvcs etc. It detects this behavior at a low level and does not depend on a specific tool or dump file name.

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A supervised machine learning model (ProblemChild) has identified a suspicious Windows process event with high probability of it being malicious activity. Alternatively, the model's blocklist identified the event as being malicious.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, started a PowerShell script or the Visual C# Command Line Compiler. This technique is sometimes used to deploy a malicious payload using the Build Engine.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started by a script or the Windows command interpreter. This behavior is unusual and is sometimes used by malicious payloads.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started by Explorer or the WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) subsystem. This behavior is unusual and is sometimes used by malicious payloads.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started by Excel or Word. This is unusual behavior for the Build Engine and could have been caused by an Excel or Word document executing a malicious script payload.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started after being renamed. This is uncommon behavior and may indicate an attempt to run unnoticed or undetected.

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Identifies suspicious processes being spawned by the Microsoft Exchange Server Unified Messaging (UM) service. This activity has been observed exploiting CVE-2021-26857.

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Identifies suspicious files being written by the Microsoft Exchange Server Unified Messaging (UM) service. This activity has been observed exploiting CVE-2021-26858.

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Identifies suspicious processes being spawned by the Microsoft Exchange Server worker process (w3wp). This activity may indicate exploitation activity or access to an existing web shell backdoor.

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Identifies use of aspnet_regiis to decrypt Microsoft IIS connection strings. An attacker with Microsoft IIS web server access via a webshell or alike can decrypt and dump any hardcoded connection strings, such as the MSSQL service account password using aspnet_regiis command.

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Identifies attempts to open a Microsoft Management Console File from untrusted paths. Adversaries may use MSC files for initial access and execution.

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Identifies the password log file from the default Mimikatz memssp module.

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Identifies modifications of the AmsiEnable registry key to 0, which disables the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI). An adversary can modify this key to disable AMSI protections.

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Identifies use of bcdedit.exe to delete boot configuration data. This tactic is sometimes used as by malware or an attacker as a destructive technique.

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Identify the modification of the msPKIAccountCredentials attribute in an Active Directory User Object. Attackers can abuse the credentials roaming feature to overwrite an arbitrary file for privilege escalation. ms-PKI-AccountCredentials contains binary large objects (BLOBs) of encrypted credential objects from the credential manager store, private keys, certificates, and certificate requests.

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Identifies attempts to modify the WDigest security provider in the registry to force the user's password to be stored in clear text in memory. This behavior can be indicative of an adversary attempting to weaken the security configuration of an endpoint. Once the UseLogonCredential value is modified, the adversary may attempt to dump clear text passwords from memory.

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Identifies the use of net.exe to mount a WebDav or hidden remote share. This may indicate lateral movement or preparation for data exfiltration.

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Microsoft Office Products offer options for users and developers to control the security settings for running and using Macros. Adversaries may abuse these security settings to modify the default behavior of the Office Application to trust future macros and/or disable security warnings, which could increase their chances of establishing persistence.

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Identifies MsBuild.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity as MsBuild is often leveraged by adversaries to execute code and evade detection.

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Identifies Mshta.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity, as Mshta is often leveraged by adversaries to execute malicious scripts and evade detection.

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Identifies the execution of an MsiExec service child process followed by network or dns lookup activity. Adversaries may abuse Windows Installers for initial access and delivery of malware.

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Identifies multiple logon failures followed by a successful one from the same source address. Adversaries will often brute force login attempts across multiple users with a common or known password, in an attempt to gain access to accounts.

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Identifies multiple consecutive logon failures from the same source address and within a short time interval. Adversaries will often brute force login attempts across multiple users with a common or known password, in an attempt to gain access to accounts.

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Windows Credential Manager allows you to create, view, or delete saved credentials for signing into websites, connected applications, and networks. An adversary may abuse this to list or dump credentials stored in the Credential Manager for saved usernames and passwords. This may also be performed in preparation of lateral movement.

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Identifies the addition of a Netsh Helper DLL, netsh.exe supports the addition of these DLLs to extend its functionality. Attackers may abuse this mechanism to execute malicious payloads every time the utility is executed, which can be done by administrators or a scheduled task.

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Compiled HTML files (.chm) are commonly distributed as part of the Microsoft HTML Help system. Adversaries may conceal malicious code in a CHM file and deliver it to a victim for execution. CHM content is loaded by the HTML Help executable program (hh.exe).

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Identifies msxsl.exe making a network connection. This may indicate adversarial activity as msxsl.exe is often leveraged by adversaries to execute malicious scripts and evade detection.

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Identifies the native Windows tools regsvr32.exe, regsvr64.exe, RegSvcs.exe, or RegAsm.exe making a network connection. This may be indicative of an attacker bypassing allowlists or running arbitrary scripts via a signed Microsoft binary.

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Binaries signed with trusted digital certificates can execute on Windows systems protected by digital signature validation. Adversaries may use these binaries to 'live off the land' and execute malicious files that could bypass application allowlists and signature validation.

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Identifies the modification of the network logon provider registry. Adversaries may register a rogue network logon provider module for persistence and/or credential access via intercepting the authentication credentials in clear text during user logon.

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Identifies the attempt to disable Network-Level Authentication (NLA) via registry modification. Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a feature on Windows that provides an extra layer of security for Remote Desktop (RDP) connections, as it requires users to authenticate before allowing a full RDP session. Attackers can disable NLA to enable persistence methods that require access to the Windows sign-in screen without authenticating, such as Accessibility Features persistence methods, like Sticky Keys.

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Identifies the use of the Exchange PowerShell cmdlet, Set-CASMailbox, to add a new ActiveSync allowed device. Adversaries may target user email to collect sensitive information.

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Identifies the execution of wbadmin to access the NTDS.dit file in a domain controller. Attackers with privileges from groups like Backup Operators can abuse the utility to perform credential access and compromise the domain.

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Identifies a copy operation of the Active Directory Domain Database (ntds.dit) or Security Account Manager (SAM) files. Those files contain sensitive information including hashed domain and/or local credentials.

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Identifies NullSessionPipe registry modifications that specify which pipes can be accessed anonymously. This could be indicative of adversary lateral movement preparation by making the added pipe available to everyone.

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Identifies the PowerShell process loading the Task Scheduler COM DLL followed by an outbound RPC network connection within a short time period. This may indicate lateral movement or remote discovery via scheduled tasks.

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Identifies modifications in registry keys associated with abuse of the Outlook Home Page functionality for command and control or persistence.

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A machine learning job combination has identified a parent process with one or more suspicious Windows processes that exhibit unusually high malicious probability scores. These process(es) have been classified as malicious in several ways. The process(es) were predicted to be malicious by the ProblemChild supervised ML model. If the anomaly contains a cluster of suspicious processes, each process has the same parent process name, and the aggregate score of the event cluster was calculated to be unusually high by an unsupervised ML model. Such a cluster often contains suspicious or malicious activity, possibly involving LOLbins, that may be resistant to detection using conventional search rules.

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Identifies use of the Windows file system utility (fsutil.exe) to gather information about attached peripheral devices and components connected to a computer system.

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An adversary can use the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) SetNotifyCmdLine method to execute a program that runs after a job finishes transferring data or after a job enters a specified state in order to persist on a system.

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Identifies a persistence mechanism that utilizes the NtSetValueKey native API to create a hidden (null terminated) registry key. An adversary may use this method to hide from system utilities such as the Registry Editor (regedit).

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Detects attempts to establish persistence on an endpoint by abusing Microsoft Office add-ins.

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Detects attempts to establish persistence on an endpoint by installing a rogue Microsoft Outlook VBA Template.

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Identifies the creation or modification of a PowerShell profile. PowerShell profile is a script that is executed when PowerShell starts to customize the user environment, which can be abused by attackers to persist in a environment where PowerShell is common.

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A job can be used to schedule programs or scripts to be executed at a specified date and time. Adversaries may abuse task scheduling functionality to facilitate initial or recurring execution of malicious code.

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Detects the successful hijack of Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser scheduled task to establish persistence with an integrity level of system.

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Identifies potential hijacking of the Microsoft Update Orchestrator Service to establish persistence with an integrity level of SYSTEM.

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An adversary can use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to install event filters, providers, consumers, and bindings that execute code when a defined event occurs. Adversaries may use the capabilities of WMI to subscribe to an event and execute arbitrary code when that event occurs, providing persistence on a system.

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Identifies script engines creating files in the Startup folder, or the creation of script files in the Startup folder. Adversaries may abuse this technique to maintain persistence in an environment.

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Identifies the creation of a new port forwarding rule. An adversary may abuse this technique to bypass network segmentation restrictions.

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Identifies the modification of the nTSecurityDescriptor attribute in a domain object with rights related to DCSync to a user/computer account. Attackers can use this backdoor to re-obtain access to hashes of any user/computer.

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Active Directory Integrated DNS (ADIDNS) is one of the core components of AD DS, leveraging AD's access control and replication to maintain domain consistency. It stores DNS zones as AD objects, a feature that, while robust, introduces some security issues, such as wildcard records, mainly because of the default permission (Any authenticated users) to create DNS-named records. Attackers can create wildcard records to redirect traffic that doesn't explicitly match records contained in the zone, becoming the Man-in-the-Middle and being able to abuse DNS similarly to LLMNR/NBNS spoofing.

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Identifies the execution of PowerShell script with keywords related to different Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) bypasses. An adversary may attempt first to disable AMSI before executing further malicious powershell scripts to evade detection.

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The Application Shim was created to allow for backward compatibility of software as the operating system codebase changes over time. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.

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Identifies the execution of a Chromium based browser with the debugging process argument, which may indicate an attempt to steal authentication cookies. An adversary may steal web application or service session cookies and use them to gain access web applications or Internet services as an authenticated user without needing credentials.

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This rule identifies when a User Account starts the Active Directory Replication Process. Attackers can use the DCSync technique to get credential information of individual accounts or the entire domain, thus compromising the entire domain.

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Identifies suspicious access to an LSASS handle via DuplicateHandle from an unknown call trace module. This may indicate an attempt to bypass the NtOpenProcess API to evade detection and dump LSASS memory for credential access.

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Identifies suspicious access to LSASS handle from a call trace pointing to DBGHelp.dll or DBGCore.dll, which both export the MiniDumpWriteDump method that can be used to dump LSASS memory content in preparation for credential access.

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Identifies suspicious renamed COMSVCS.DLL Image Load, which exports the MiniDump function that can be used to dump a process memory. This may indicate an attempt to dump LSASS memory while bypassing command-line based detection in preparation for credential access.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, loaded DLLs (dynamically linked libraries) responsible for Windows credential management. This technique is sometimes used for credential dumping.

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Identifies the execution of known Windows utilities often abused to dump LSASS memory or the Active Directory database (NTDS.dit) in preparation for credential access.

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Identifies a Windows trusted program that is known to be vulnerable to DLL Search Order Hijacking starting after being renamed or from a non-standard path. This is uncommon behavior and may indicate an attempt to evade defenses via side-loading a malicious DLL within the memory space of one of those processes.

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Identifies an instance of a Windows trusted program that is known to be vulnerable to DLL Search Order Hijacking starting after being renamed or from a non-standard path. This is uncommon behavior and may indicate an attempt to evade defenses via side loading a malicious DLL within the memory space of one of those processes.

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This rule identifies a large number (15) of nslookup.exe executions with an explicit query type from the same host. This may indicate command and control activity utilizing the DNS protocol.

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Identifies when a browser process navigates to the Microsoft Help page followed by spawning an elevated process. This may indicate a successful exploitation for privilege escalation abusing a vulnerable Windows Installer repair setup.

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The Filter Manager Control Program (fltMC.exe) binary may be abused by adversaries to unload a filter driver and evade defenses.

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Identifies multiple Windows Filtering Platform block events and where the process name is related to an endpoint security software. Adversaries may add malicious WFP rules to prevent Endpoint security from sending telemetry.

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Adversaries may leverage unquoted service path vulnerabilities to escalate privileges. By placing an executable in a higher-level directory within the path of an unquoted service executable, Windows will natively launch this executable from its defined path variable instead of the benign one in a deeper directory, thus leading to code execution.

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Identifies the use of a browser to download a file from a remote URL and from a suspicious parent process. Adversaries may use browsers to avoid ingress tool transfer restrictions.

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Identifies Certreq making an HTTP Post request. Adversaries could abuse Certreq to download files or upload data to a remote URL.

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Identifies Curl for Windows making an HTTP request. Adversaries could abuse Curl to download files or upload data to a remote URL.

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Identifies the Foxmail client spawning a child process with argument pointing to the Foxmail temp directory. This may indicate the successful exploitation of a Foxmail vulnerability for initial access and execution via a malicious email.

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Mimikatz is a credential dumper capable of obtaining plaintext Windows account logins and passwords, along with many other features that make it useful for testing the security of networks. This rule detects Invoke-Mimikatz PowerShell script and alike.

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Identifies attempt to coerce a local NTLM authentication via HTTP using the Windows Printer Spooler service as a target. An adversary may use this primitive in combination with other techniques to elevate privileges on a compromised system.

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Identifies the creation of an LSASS process clone via PssCaptureSnapShot where the parent process is the initial LSASS process instance. This may indicate an attempt to evade detection and dump LSASS memory for credential access.

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Identifies suspicious access to an LSASS handle via PssCaptureSnapShot where two successive process accesses are performed by the same process and target two different instances of LSASS. This may indicate an attempt to evade detection and dump LSASS memory for credential access.

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