OneNote.EXE Execution of Malicious Embedded Scripts

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

Detects the execution of malicious OneNote documents that contain embedded scripts. When a user clicks on a OneNote attachment and then on the malicious link inside the ".one" file, it exports and executes the malicious embedded script from specific directories.

Known false positives

Unlikely

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Stealth	`T1218.001` System Binary Proxy Execution: Compiled HTML File

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: OneNote.EXE Execution of Malicious Embedded Scripts
id: 84b1706c-932a-44c4-ae28-892b28a25b94
status: test
description: |
    Detects the execution of malicious OneNote documents that contain embedded scripts.
    When a user clicks on a OneNote attachment and then on the malicious link inside the ".one" file, it exports and executes the malicious embedded script from specific directories.
references:
    - https://bazaar.abuse.ch/browse/tag/one/
author: '@kostastsale'
date: 2023-02-02
tags:
    - attack.stealth
    - attack.t1218.001
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        ParentImage|endswith: '\onenote.exe'
        Image|endswith:
            - '\cmd.exe'
            - '\cscript.exe'
            - '\mshta.exe'
            - '\powershell.exe'
            - '\pwsh.exe'
            - '\wscript.exe'
        CommandLine|contains:
            - '\exported\'
            - '\onenoteofflinecache_files\'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Unlikely
level: high

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    ParentImage|endswith: '\onenote.exe'
    Image|endswith:
        - '\cmd.exe'
        - '\cscript.exe'
        - '\mshta.exe'
        - '\powershell.exe'
        - '\pwsh.exe'
        - '\wscript.exe'
    CommandLine|contains:
        - '\exported\'
        - '\onenoteofflinecache_files\'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`CommandLine`	match	`\exported\` `\onenoteofflinecache_files\`	`field:"CommandLine" kind:match`
`Image`	ends_with	`\cmd.exe` corpus 130 (sigma 130) `\cscript.exe` corpus 72 (sigma 72) `\mshta.exe` corpus 66 (sigma 66) `\powershell.exe` corpus 179 (sigma 178, kusto 1) `\pwsh.exe` corpus 165 (sigma 164, kusto 1) `\wscript.exe` corpus 74 (sigma 74)	`field:"Image" kind:ends_with`
`ParentImage`	ends_with	`\onenote.exe` corpus 5 (sigma 5)	`field:"ParentImage" kind:ends_with value:"\onenote.exe"`