Potential Recon Activity Using DriverQuery.EXE

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

Detect usage of the "driverquery" utility to perform reconnaissance on installed drivers

Known false positives

Legitimate usage by some scripts might trigger this as well

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Discovery	No specific technique

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 1: Process creation

Rule body

title: Potential Recon Activity Using DriverQuery.EXE
id: 9fc3072c-dc8f-4bf7-b231-18950000fadd
related:
    - id: a20def93-0709-4eae-9bd2-31206e21e6b2
      type: similar
status: test
description: Detect usage of the "driverquery" utility to perform reconnaissance on installed drivers
references:
    - https://thedfirreport.com/2023/01/09/unwrapping-ursnifs-gifts/
    - https://www.vmray.com/cyber-security-blog/analyzing-ursnif-behavior-malware-sandbox/
    - https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/01/saigon-mysterious-ursnif-fork.html
author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2023-01-19
modified: 2023-09-29
tags:
    - attack.discovery
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_img:
        - Image|endswith: 'driverquery.exe'
        - OriginalFileName: 'drvqry.exe'
    selection_parent:
        - ParentImage|endswith:
              - '\cscript.exe'
              - '\mshta.exe'
              - '\regsvr32.exe'
              - '\rundll32.exe'
              - '\wscript.exe'
        - ParentImage|contains:
              - '\AppData\Local\'
              - '\Users\Public\'
              - '\Windows\Temp\'
    condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate usage by some scripts might trigger this as well
level: high
regression_tests_path: regression_data/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_driverquery_recon/info.yml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

all of selection_*

Stage 1: `selection_img`

selection_img:
    - Image|endswith: 'driverquery.exe'
    - OriginalFileName: 'drvqry.exe'

Stage 2: `selection_parent`

selection_parent:
    - ParentImage|endswith:
          - '\cscript.exe'
          - '\mshta.exe'
          - '\regsvr32.exe'
          - '\rundll32.exe'
          - '\wscript.exe'
    - ParentImage|contains:
          - '\AppData\Local\'
          - '\Users\Public\'
          - '\Windows\Temp\'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`Image`	ends_with	`driverquery.exe` corpus 2 (sigma 2)	`field:"Image" kind:ends_with value:"driverquery.exe"`
`OriginalFileName`	eq	`drvqry.exe` corpus 2 (sigma 2)	`field:"OriginalFileName" kind:eq value:"drvqry.exe"`
`ParentImage`	ends_with	`\cscript.exe` corpus 17 (sigma 17) `\mshta.exe` corpus 13 (sigma 13) `\regsvr32.exe` corpus 11 (sigma 11) `\rundll32.exe` corpus 15 (sigma 15) `\wscript.exe` corpus 19 (sigma 19)	`field:"ParentImage" kind:ends_with`
`ParentImage`	match	`\AppData\Local\` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `\Users\Public\` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `\Windows\Temp\` corpus 2 (sigma 2)	`field:"ParentImage" kind:match`

Potential Recon Activity Using DriverQuery.EXE

Known false positives

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Telemetry coverage

Rule body

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

Stage 1: selection_img

Stage 2: selection_parent

Indicators

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection_img`

Stage 2: `selection_parent`