Arbitrary MSI Download Via Devinit.EXE

Status: test
Severity: medium
Log source: category process_creation, product windows
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects a certain command line flag combination used by "devinit.exe", which can be abused as a LOLBIN to download arbitrary MSI packages on a Windows system

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Stealth	`T1218` System Binary Proxy Execution

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 1: Process creation
Security-Auditing	Event ID 4688: A new process has been created.

Rule body

title: Arbitrary MSI Download Via Devinit.EXE
id: 90d50722-0483-4065-8e35-57efaadd354d
status: test
description: Detects a certain command line flag combination used by "devinit.exe", which can be abused as a LOLBIN to download arbitrary MSI packages on a Windows system
references:
    - https://twitter.com/mrd0x/status/1460815932402679809
    - https://lolbas-project.github.io/lolbas/OtherMSBinaries/Devinit/
author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
date: 2022-01-11
modified: 2023-04-06
tags:
    - attack.execution
    - attack.stealth
    - attack.t1218
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        CommandLine|contains|all:
            - ' -t msi-install '
            - ' -i http'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    CommandLine|contains|all:
        - ' -t msi-install '
        - ' -i http'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`CommandLine`	match	`-i http` `-t msi-install`	`field:"CommandLine" kind:match`