Event Triggered Execution T1546

Tactics: Privilege Escalation, Persistence

Adversaries may establish persistence and/or elevate privileges using system mechanisms that trigger execution based on specific events. Various operating systems have means to monitor and subscribe to events such as logons or other user activity such as running specific applications/binaries. Cloud environments may also support various functions and services that monitor and can be invoked in response to specific cloud events.

Events covered

40 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEventTitle
SysmonEvent ID 1Process creation
SysmonEvent ID 3Network connection
SysmonEvent ID 7Image loaded
SysmonEvent ID 11FileCreate
SysmonEvent ID 12RegistryEvent (Object create and delete)
SysmonEvent ID 13RegistryEvent (Value Set)
SysmonEvent ID 14RegistryEvent (Key and Value Rename)
SysmonEvent ID 19WmiEvent (WmiEventFilter activity detected)
SysmonEvent ID 20WmiEvent (WmiEventConsumer activity detected)
SysmonEvent ID 21WmiEvent (WmiEventConsumerToFilter activity detected)
SysmonEvent ID 23FileDelete (File Delete archived)
SysmonEvent ID 26FileDeleteDetected (File Delete logged)
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4624An account was successfully logged on.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4656A handle to an object was requested.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4657A registry value was modified.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4662An operation was performed on an object.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4663An attempt was made to access an object.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4688A new process has been created.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 5136A directory service object was modified.
Defender-AlertEvidenceanyAlert evidence
Defender-DeviceEventsanyDefender event
Defender-DeviceFileEventsanyFile activity
Defender-DeviceNetworkEventsanyNetwork activity
Defender-DeviceNetworkEventsConnectionSuccessConnection succeeded
Defender-DeviceProcessEventsanyProcess activity
Defender-DeviceRegistryEventsRegistryValueSetRegistry value set
ESFexecProcess Execution
ESFcreateFile or Directory Create
ESFwriteFile Write
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1302PATH
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1307CWD
MSSQLSERVEREvent ID 8128Event ID 8128
PowerShellEvent ID 4103Payload Context: ContextInfo User Data: UserData.
PowerShellEvent ID 4104Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal).
ProcessExitMonitorEvent ID 3000The process 'param1' exited with exit code param2.
WMI-ActivityEvent ID 5859Namespace = Operation_EssStarted.NamespaceName; NotificationQuery = Operation_EssStarted.Query; OwnerName = Operation_EssStarted.User; HostProcessID = Operation_EssStarted.Processid; Provider= Operation_EssStarted.Provider, queryID = Operation_EssStarted.queryid; PossibleCause = Operation_EssStarted.PossibleCause.
WMI-ActivityEvent ID 5861Namespace = Operation_ESStoConsumerBinding.Namespace; Eventfilter = Operation_ESStoConsumerBinding.ESS (refer to its activate eventid:5859); Consumer = Operation_ESStoConsumerBinding.CONSUMER; PossibleCause = Operation_ESStoConsumerBinding.PossibleCause.
PowerShellEvent ID 800Event ID 800
Sysmon-for-LinuxEvent ID 1Process Create
Sysmon-for-LinuxEvent ID 11File created

Authoring guide

These 241 rules share fields, values, and exclusions.

Fields filtered most (142 distinct)

These fields appear most often in rule filters.

FieldRulesHowSample values
EventType62eq 39, in 16, ne 5, starts_with 3exec, creation, modification, start, connection_attempted
event.type56eq 49, in 4, ne 3start, change, creation, deletion, process_started
host.os.type54eq 53, in 1
Image52ends_with 26, is_not_null 9, eq 7, contains 6, starts_with 6, wildcard 3\cmd.exe, \reg.exe, /boot/*, /dev/shm/*, \netsh.exe
TargetObject45contains 17, ends_with 16, wildcard 13, eq 1, regex_match 1, starts_with 1\software\microsoft\netsh, \software\microsoft\windows..., \software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\image file..., hkey_users\*classes\*\delegateexecute\, hkey_users\*classes\*\inprocserver32\
process_name45eq 16, in 16, wildcard 9, regex_match 5, ends_with 2, starts_with 2, is_not_null 1bash, csh, dash, cp, mv
CommandLine40contains 29, regex_match 8, in 3, ends_with 2, wildcard 2, eq 1, is_null 1(?i)(vi|vim|nano|visudo|edit|copy\s+con|cat|more|gc|get-c..., (?i)Debugger.+\x5c(cmd|pwsh|powershell)\.exe, add, displayswitch.exe, (?i)(sethc|utilman|osk|Magnify|Narrator|DisplaySwitch|atb...
TargetFilename40wildcard 18, contains 9, ends_with 9, starts_with 8, match 1/library/managed preferences/*, /system/library/preferences/*, /users/*/library/preferences/byhost/*, \microsoft\outlook\vbaproject.otm, site-packages
Details33contains 12, eq 10, is_not_null 9, length_compare 3, regex_match 2, ge 1, is_null 1, wildcard 1(empty), %temp%, %appdata%, %tmp%, 0
parent_process_name31eq 16, in 7, regex_match 5, contains 2, wildcard 2, ends_with 1, is_null 1, starts_with 1bash, csh, dash, (?i)(WmiPrvSE), (?i)cleanmgr\.exe
EventID29eq 294688, 1, 13, 4104, 21
process.args22eq 10, starts_with 7, in 6, wildcard 3, contains 1, ends_with 1-c, --install, -i, .git/hooks/, * /dev/shm/*
OriginalFileName16eq 15, starts_with 1cmd.exe, reg.exe, powershell.exe, pwsh.dll, rundll32.exe
file.name11eq 4, in 3, wildcard 2, is_not_null 1, starts_with 1com.apple.screensaver.*.plist, release_agent, ., .bash_aliases, .bash_login
ParentImage10ends_with 6, eq 2, starts_with 1, wildcard 1\winlogon.exe, ., /dev/shm/*, /etc/profile.d/*, /usr/sbin/sshd

Top indicator values (1705 distinct)

These values appear most often in rule predicates.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
event.typeeq
start
331078
event.typeeq
change
1294
event.typeeq
creation
553
EventTypeeq
exec
18576
EventTypeeq
connection_attempted
673
EventTypeeq
modification
672
process_namein
bash
12202
process_namein
sh
12197
process_namein
zsh
12196
process_namein
csh
10159
process_namein
dash
9170
process_namein
fish
9163
process_namein
ksh
9163
process_namein
tcsh
9156
EventIDeq
4688
10317
EventIDeq
1
7241
process_namewildcard
python*
869
process_namewildcard
osascript
532
EventTypein
exec
7201
EventTypein
creation
634
EventTypein
rename
527
EventTypein
start
5163
event.outcomeeq
success
6369
process.code_signature.existseq
false
6119
process.code_signature.trustedeq
false
6115
EventTypene
deletion
586
Imageends_with
\cmd.exe
5130
parent_process_namein
bash
565
parent_process_namein
sh
565
parent_process_namein
zsh
563

Exclusions (1019 distinct)

These values appear most often in top-level exclusions.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
Imagein
/usr/bin/podman
12
Imagein
/usr/bin/dockerd
11
Imagein
./usr/bin/podman
10
Imagein
/bin/podman
10
Imagein
/bin/yum
10
Imagein
/usr/bin/dnf
10
Imagein
/usr/bin/yum
10
Imagein
/usr/sbin/dockerd
10
Imagein
/bin/autossl_check
9
Imagein
/bin/chef-client
9
Imagein
/bin/dnf
9
Imagein
/bin/dnf-automatic
9
Imagein
/bin/dockerd
9
Imagein
/bin/microdnf
9
Imagein
/bin/puppet
9

Rules under this technique

These vendors publish rules tagged with this technique.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 77 rules

Elastic 92 rules

Splunk 41 rules

Kusto 29 rules

Panther 2 rules