Indicator Removal: Timestomp T1070.006
Tactic: Stealth
Adversaries may modify file time attributes to hide new files or changes to existing files. Timestomping is a technique that modifies the timestamps of a file (the modify, access, create, and change times), often to mimic files that are in the same folder and blend malicious files with legitimate files.
Events covered
9 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 2 | A process changed a file creation time |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4616 | The system time was changed. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
| ESF | exec | Process Execution (Notify) |
| Linux-Auditd | Event ID 1309 | EXECVE |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4103 | Payload Context: ContextInfo User Data: UserData. |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4104 | Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal). |
| PowerShell | Event ID 800 | Event ID 800 |
| Sysmon-for-Linux | Event ID 1 | Process Create |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 15 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (23 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (99 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.
Exclusions (105 distinct)
Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 8 rules
- File Creation Date Changed to Another Year
- File Time Attribute Change
- File Time Attribute Change - Linux
- Powershell Timestomp
- System time changed
- System time changed (PowerShell)
- Touch Suspicious Service File
- Unauthorized System Time Modification
Elastic 3 rules
- ESXI Timestomping using Touch Command
- Potential Timestomp in Executable Files
- Timestomping using Touch Command
Splunk 3 rules
- ESXi System Clock Manipulation
- Timestamp Manipulation (PowerShell)
- Timestamp Manipulation (Windows Event Log)