Detection rules › Sigma

LiveKD Driver Creation

Status
test
Severity
medium
Log source
category file_event, product windows
Author
Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
Source
github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects the creation of the LiveKD driver, which is used for live kernel debugging

Known false positives

  • Legitimate usage of LiveKD for debugging purposes will also trigger this

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Privilege EscalationNo specific technique
StealthNo specific technique

Telemetry coverage

ProviderRecord / event type
SysmonEvent ID 11: FileCreate

Rule body

title: LiveKD Driver Creation
id: 16fe46bb-4f64-46aa-817d-ff7bec4a2352
status: test
description: Detects the creation of the LiveKD driver, which is used for live kernel debugging
references:
    - Internal Research
author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2023-05-16
tags:
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.stealth
logsource:
    product: windows
    category: file_event
detection:
    selection:
        TargetFilename: 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\LiveKdD.SYS'
        Image|endswith:
            - '\livekd.exe'
            - '\livek64.exe'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate usage of LiveKD for debugging purposes will also trigger this
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

selection

Stage 1: selection

selection:
    TargetFilename: 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\LiveKdD.SYS'
    Image|endswith:
        - '\livekd.exe'
        - '\livek64.exe'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

FieldKindValuesSearch
Imageends_with
  • \livek64.exe
  • \livekd.exe corpus 4 (sigma 4)
field:"Image" kind:ends_with
TargetFilenameeq
  • C:\Windows\System32\drivers\LiveKdD.SYS corpus 2 (sigma 2)
field:"TargetFilename" kind:eq value:"C:\Windows\System32\drivers\LiveKdD.SYS"