Stop Windows Service Via Sc.EXE

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

Detects the stopping of a Windows service via the "sc.exe" utility

Known false positives

There are many legitimate reasons to stop a service. This rule isn't looking for any suspicious behavior in particular. Filter legitimate activity accordingly

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Impact	`T1489` Service Stop

Telemetry coverage

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

Rule body

title: Stop Windows Service Via Sc.EXE
id: 81bcb81b-5b1f-474b-b373-52c871aaa7b1
related:
    - id: eb87818d-db5d-49cc-a987-d5da331fbd90
      type: obsolete
status: test
description: Detects the stopping of a Windows service via the "sc.exe" utility
references:
    - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/cc742107(v=ws.11)
author: Jakob Weinzettl, oscd.community, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2023-03-05
modified: 2024-01-18
tags:
    - attack.impact
    - attack.t1489
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_img:
        - OriginalFileName: 'sc.exe'
        - Image|endswith: '\sc.exe'
    selection_cli:
        CommandLine|contains: ' stop '
    condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - There are many legitimate reasons to stop a service. This rule isn't looking for any suspicious behavior in particular. Filter legitimate activity accordingly
level: low
regression_tests_path: regression_data/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_sc_stop_service/info.yml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

all of selection_*

Stage 1: `selection_img`

selection_img:
    - OriginalFileName: 'sc.exe'
    - Image|endswith: '\sc.exe'

Stage 2: `selection_cli`

selection_cli:
    CommandLine|contains: ' stop '

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`CommandLine`	match	`stop` corpus 8 (sigma 6, splunk 2)	`field:"CommandLine" kind:match value:" stop "`
`Image`	ends_with	`\sc.exe` corpus 30 (sigma 30)	`field:"Image" kind:ends_with value:"\sc.exe"`
`OriginalFileName`	eq	`sc.exe` corpus 30 (sigma 12, splunk 10, elastic 8)	`field:"OriginalFileName" kind:eq value:"sc.exe"`

Stop Windows Service Via Sc.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_cli

Indicators

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection_img`

Stage 2: `selection_cli`