Domain or Tenant Policy Modification: Group Policy Modification T1484.001
Tactics: Defense Impairment, Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may modify Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to subvert the intended discretionary access controls for a domain, usually with the intention of escalating privileges on the domain. Group policy allows for centralized management of user and computer settings in Active Directory (AD). GPOs are containers for group policy settings made up of files stored within a predictable network path `\<DOMAIN>\SYSVOL\<DOMAIN>\Policies\`.
Events covered
9 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 1 | Process creation |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5136 | A directory service object was modified. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5137 | A directory service object was created. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5138 | A directory service object was undeleted. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5139 | A directory service object was moved. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5141 | A directory service object was deleted. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5145 | A network share object was checked to see whether client can be granted desired access. |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4104 | Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal). |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 24 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 (29 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 (88 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 (12 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
- Group Policy Abuse for Privilege Addition
- Modify Group Policy Settings
- Modify Group Policy Settings - ScriptBlockLogging
- Permissions changed on a Group Policy (GPO)
- Startup/Logon Script Added to Group Policy Object
- Suspicious modification of a sensitive Group Policy (GPO)
- Windows Default Domain GPO Modification
- Windows Default Domain GPO Modification via GPME
Elastic 4 rules
- Creation or Modification of a new GPO Scheduled Task or Service
- Group Policy Abuse for Privilege Addition
- Scheduled Task Execution at Scale via GPO
- Startup/Logon Script added to Group Policy Object
Splunk 10 rules
- Modify Group Policy (Windows Event Log)
- Windows AD GPO Deleted
- Windows AD GPO Disabled
- Windows AD GPO New CSE Addition
- Windows Admon Default Group Policy Object Modified
- Windows Admon Group Policy Object Created
- Windows Default Group Policy Object Modified
- Windows Default Group Policy Object Modified with GPME
- Windows Group Policy Object Created
- Windows Scheduled Task Created in a Group Policy Object