Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism T1548

Tactic: Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may circumvent mechanisms designed to control privilege elevation to gain higher-level permissions. Most modern systems contain native elevation control mechanisms that are intended to limit privileges that a user can perform on a machine. Authorization has to be granted to specific users in order to perform tasks that can be considered of higher risk. An adversary can perform several methods to take advantage of built-in control mechanisms in order to escalate privileges on a system.

Events covered

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

ProviderEventTitle
SysmonEvent ID 1Process creation
SysmonEvent ID 5Process terminated
SysmonEvent ID 7Image loaded
SysmonEvent ID 10ProcessAccess
SysmonEvent ID 11FileCreate
SysmonEvent ID 12RegistryEvent (Object create and delete)
SysmonEvent ID 13RegistryEvent (Value Set)
SysmonEvent ID 14RegistryEvent (Key and Value Rename)
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4624An account was successfully logged on.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4657A registry value was modified.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4663An attempt was made to access an object.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4674An operation was attempted on a privileged object.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4688A new process has been created.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4689A process has exited.
Defender-CloudAppEventsanyCloud app activity
Defender-DeviceRegistryEventsRegistryKeyDeletedRegistry key deleted
Defender-DeviceRegistryEventsRegistryValueSetRegistry value set
Defender-DeviceRegistryEventsRegistryValueDeletedRegistry value deleted
Defender-DeviceRegistryEventsRegistryKeyRenamedRegistry key renamed
Defender-IdentityInfoanyIdentity information
ESFexecProcess Execution
ESFopenFile Open
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1300SYSCALL
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1302PATH
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1307CWD
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1309EXECVE
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1321BPRM_FCAPS
Linux-AuditdEvent ID 1327PROCTITLE
PowerShellEvent ID 4103Payload Context: ContextInfo User Data: UserData.
PowerShellEvent ID 4104Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal).
NETLOGONEvent ID 5829The Netlogon service allowed a vulnerable Netlogon secure channel connection.
Sysmon-for-LinuxEvent ID 1Process Create
Sysmon-for-LinuxEvent ID 11File created

Authoring guide

These 366 rules share fields, values, and exclusions.

Fields filtered most (168 distinct)

These fields appear most often in rule filters.

FieldRulesHowSample values
EventType95eq 78, in 19, ne 2exec, start, uid_change, rename, exec_event
process_basename73eq 55, in 18, starts_with 6, is_not_null 3, contains 1, ends_with 1, ne 1dllhost.exe, bash, chmod, sudo, setcap
CommandLine67contains 51, eq 11, wildcard 7, in 5, ends_with 3, regex_match 3, starts_with 2, match 1*sudo*, *--eval*, (?i)ms-settings\x5cshell\x5copen\x5ccommand.+, *-e*, *-wrapper*
event.type63eq 54, in 7, ne 2start, change, process_started, creation, deletion
Image57ends_with 28, wildcard 9, is_not_null 7, contains 5, eq 5, starts_with 4, in 2, /dev/shm/*, /home/*/*, .*, \dism.exe
parent_process_basename44eq 29, in 13, wildcard 7bash, .*, bun, csh, dash
process.args39eq 23, in 14, wildcard 10, starts_with 5, contains 2, regex_match 1+x, --command, -2000, -4000, -6000
ParentImage34ends_with 17, wildcard 10, contains 3, eq 2, in 2, is_not_null 1, starts_with 1/dev/shm/*, /home/*/*, ./*, .*, *\ProgramData\*
TargetFilename32starts_with 14, ends_with 11, wildcard 11, eq 4, in 3, contains 2, regex_match 1C:\Users\, /etc/doas.conf, (?i)^C:\\Users\\[^\\]+\\NTUSER\.DAT$, */etc/doas.conf, *sudoers.tmp*
EventID25eq 254688, 1, 4657, 13, 4103
TargetObject23contains 9, ends_with 8, wildcard 6, eq 1Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command, *\ms-settings*, *\ms-windows-store*, Classes\exefile\shell\open\command\(Default), Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command\(Default)
process.Ext.token.integrity_level_name23eq 23high, system, medium
IntegrityLevel22eq 20, in 4High, S-1-16-12288, S-1-16-16384, high, low
Details20eq 13, contains 3, ends_with 3, is_not_null 2, regex_match 1, starts_with 10x00000000, , (Empty), *.dll, 0
user.id18ne 13, eq 12, is_not_null 1, starts_with 10, , S-1-0-0, S-1-12-*, S-1-5-18

Top indicator values (2394 distinct)

These values appear most often in rule predicates.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
event.typeeq
start
481036
event.typeeq
change
1289
EventTypeeq
exec
35547
EventTypeeq
start
25388
EventTypeeq
uid_change
717
CommandLinecontains
*sudo*
2224
IntegrityLeveleq
S-1-16-16384
1931
IntegrityLeveleq
High
1618
process.Ext.token.integrity_level_nameeq
high
1919
event.outcomeeq
success
11306
user.idne
0
1119
protoPayload.authorizationInfois_not_null
1017
process_basenameeq
dllhost.exe
919
user.ideq
0
914
EventIDeq
1
8226
EventIDeq
4688
8284
parent_process_basenamein
bash
860
parent_process_basenamein
csh
837
parent_process_basenamein
dash
838
parent_process_basenamein
fish
838
parent_process_basenamein
ksh
838
parent_process_basenamein
sh
860
parent_process_basenamein
tcsh
838
parent_process_basenamein
zsh
860
process_basenamein
bash
8181
process_basenamein
dash
7150
process_basenamein
fish
7151
sourcetypeeq
auditd
858
Imageis_not_null
7155
Provider_Nameeq
sts.amazonaws.com
711

Exclusions (733 distinct)

These values appear most often in top-level exclusions.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
Imageeq
?:\Windows\SysWOW64\WerFault.exe
13
Imageeq
?:\Windows\System32\WerFault.exe
13
Imageeq
?:\Windows\SysWOW64\wermgr.exe
6
Imageeq
?:\Windows\System32\wermgr.exe
6
Imageeq
?:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe
3
process.code_signature.trustedeq
true
7
Imagein
/usr/bin/sudo
4
Imagein
/bin/sudo
3
Imagewildcard
?:\Program Files (x86)\*.exe
3
Imagewildcard
?:\Program Files\*.exe
3
Imagewildcard
?:\Windows\SysWOW64\mmc.exe
3
Imagewildcard
?:\Windows\System32\mmc.exe
3
ParentImagewildcard
/tmp/newroot/*
3
aws::errorCodeis_not_null
3
aws::errorMessageis_not_null
3

Rules under this technique

These vendors publish rules tagged with this technique.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 90 rules

Elastic 120 rules

Splunk 90 rules

Kusto 46 rules

Panther 20 rules