MMC Spawning Windows Shell

Status: test
Severity: high
Log source: category process_creation, product windows
Author: Karneades, Swisscom CSIRT
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects a Windows command line executable started from MMC

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Lateral Movement	`T1021.003` Remote Services: Distributed Component Object Model

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: MMC Spawning Windows Shell
id: 05a2ab7e-ce11-4b63-86db-ab32e763e11d
status: test
description: Detects a Windows command line executable started from MMC
references:
    - https://enigma0x3.net/2017/01/05/lateral-movement-using-the-mmc20-application-com-object/
author: Karneades, Swisscom CSIRT
date: 2019-08-05
modified: 2022-07-14
tags:
    - attack.lateral-movement
    - attack.t1021.003
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection1:
        ParentImage|endswith: '\mmc.exe'
    selection2:
        - Image|endswith:
              - '\cmd.exe'
              - '\powershell.exe'
              - '\pwsh.exe'
              - '\wscript.exe'
              - '\cscript.exe'
              - '\sh.exe'
              - '\bash.exe'
              - '\reg.exe'
              - '\regsvr32.exe'
        - Image|contains: '\BITSADMIN'
    condition: all of selection*
level: high

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

all of selection*

Stage 1: `selection1`

selection1:
    ParentImage|endswith: '\mmc.exe'

Stage 2: `selection2`

selection2:
    - Image|endswith:
          - '\cmd.exe'
          - '\powershell.exe'
          - '\pwsh.exe'
          - '\wscript.exe'
          - '\cscript.exe'
          - '\sh.exe'
          - '\bash.exe'
          - '\reg.exe'
          - '\regsvr32.exe'
    - Image|contains: '\BITSADMIN'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`Image`	ends_with	`\bash.exe` corpus 21 (sigma 21) `\cmd.exe` corpus 130 (sigma 130) `\cscript.exe` corpus 72 (sigma 72) `\powershell.exe` corpus 179 (sigma 178, kusto 1) `\pwsh.exe` corpus 165 (sigma 164, kusto 1) `\reg.exe` corpus 58 (sigma 58) `\regsvr32.exe` corpus 64 (sigma 64) `\sh.exe` corpus 16 (sigma 16) `\wscript.exe` corpus 74 (sigma 74)	`field:"Image" kind:ends_with`
`Image`	match	`\BITSADMIN`	`field:"Image" kind:match value:"\BITSADMIN"`
`ParentImage`	ends_with	`\mmc.exe` corpus 3 (sigma 3)	`field:"ParentImage" kind:ends_with value:"\mmc.exe"`

MMC Spawning Windows Shell

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Telemetry coverage

Rule body

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

Stage 1: selection1

Stage 2: selection2

Indicators

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection1`

Stage 2: `selection2`