HackTool - CACTUSTORCH Remote Thread Creation

Status: test
Severity: high
Log source: category create_remote_thread, product windows
Author: @SBousseaden (detection), Thomas Patzke (rule)
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects remote thread creation from CACTUSTORCH as described in references.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Execution	`T1059.005` Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic `T1059.007` Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript
Privilege Escalation	`T1055.012` Process Injection: Process Hollowing
Stealth	`T1055.012` Process Injection: Process Hollowing `T1218.005` System Binary Proxy Execution: Mshta

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 8: CreateRemoteThread

Rule body

title: HackTool - CACTUSTORCH Remote Thread Creation
id: 2e4e488a-6164-4811-9ea1-f960c7359c40
status: test
description: Detects remote thread creation from CACTUSTORCH as described in references.
references:
    - https://twitter.com/SBousseaden/status/1090588499517079552 # Deleted
    - https://github.com/mdsecactivebreach/CACTUSTORCH
author: '@SBousseaden (detection), Thomas Patzke (rule)'
date: 2019-02-01
modified: 2023-05-05
tags:
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.execution
    - attack.stealth
    - attack.t1055.012
    - attack.t1059.005
    - attack.t1059.007
    - attack.t1218.005
logsource:
    product: windows
    category: create_remote_thread
detection:
    selection:
        SourceImage|endswith:
            - '\System32\cscript.exe'
            - '\System32\wscript.exe'
            - '\System32\mshta.exe'
            - '\winword.exe'
            - '\excel.exe'
        TargetImage|contains: '\SysWOW64\'
        StartModule: null
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: high

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    SourceImage|endswith:
        - '\System32\cscript.exe'
        - '\System32\wscript.exe'
        - '\System32\mshta.exe'
        - '\winword.exe'
        - '\excel.exe'
    TargetImage|contains: '\SysWOW64\'
    StartModule: null

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`SourceImage`	ends_with	`\System32\cscript.exe` `\System32\mshta.exe` `\System32\wscript.exe` `\excel.exe` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `\winword.exe` corpus 3 (sigma 3)	`field:"SourceImage" kind:ends_with`
`StartModule`	is_null	(no value, null check)	`field:"StartModule" kind:is_null`
`TargetImage`	match	`\SysWOW64\`	`field:"TargetImage" kind:match value:"\SysWOW64\"`

HackTool - CACTUSTORCH Remote Thread Creation

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Telemetry coverage

Rule body

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

Stage 1: selection

Indicators

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection`