Detection rules › Sigma
Potential Discovery Activity Via Dnscmd.EXE
Detects an attempt to leverage dnscmd.exe to enumerate the DNS zones of a domain. DNS zones used to host the DNS records for a particular domain.
Known false positives
- Legitimate administration use
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Execution | No specific technique |
| Discovery | No specific technique |
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: Potential Discovery Activity Via Dnscmd.EXE
id: b6457d63-d2a2-4e29-859d-4e7affc153d1
status: test
description: Detects an attempt to leverage dnscmd.exe to enumerate the DNS zones of a domain. DNS zones used to host the DNS records for a particular domain.
references:
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/dnscmd
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/dns/dns-zones-records
- https://lolbas-project.github.io/lolbas/Binaries/Dnscmd/
author: '@gott_cyber'
date: 2022-07-31
modified: 2023-02-04
tags:
- attack.discovery
- attack.execution
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection_img:
Image|endswith: '\dnscmd.exe'
selection_cli:
CommandLine|contains:
- '/enumrecords'
- '/enumzones'
- '/ZonePrint'
- '/info'
condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
- Legitimate administration use
level: medium
Stages and Predicates
Stage 0: condition
all of selection_*Stage 1: selection_img
selection_img:
Image|endswith: '\dnscmd.exe'
Stage 2: selection_cli
selection_cli:
CommandLine|contains:
- '/enumrecords'
- '/enumzones'
- '/ZonePrint'
- '/info'
Indicators
These rows show field, operator, and value matches.
| Field | Kind | Values | Search |
|---|---|---|---|
CommandLine | match |
| field:"CommandLine" kind:match |
Image | ends_with |
| field:"Image" kind:ends_with value:"\dnscmd.exe" |