Detection rules › Sigma

Permission Check Via Accesschk.EXE

Status
test
Severity
medium
Log source
product windows, category process_creation
Author
Teymur Kheirkhabarov (idea), Mangatas Tondang, oscd.community, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
Source
github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects the usage of the "Accesschk" utility, an access and privilege audit tool developed by SysInternal and often being abused by attacker to verify process privileges

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Event coverage

ProviderEventTitle
SysmonEvent ID 1Process creation

Rule body yaml

title: Permission Check Via Accesschk.EXE
id: c625d754-6a3d-4f65-9c9a-536aea960d37
status: test
description: Detects the usage of the "Accesschk" utility, an access and privilege audit tool developed by SysInternal and often being abused by attacker to verify process privileges
references:
    - https://speakerdeck.com/heirhabarov/hunting-for-privilege-escalation-in-windows-environment?slide=43
    - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGs-aKf2OtU&ab_channel=OFFZONEMOSCOW
    - https://github.com/carlospolop/PEASS-ng/blob/fa0f2e17fbc1d86f1fd66338a40e665e7182501d/winPEAS/winPEASbat/winPEAS.bat
    - https://github.com/gladiatx0r/Powerless/blob/04f553bbc0c65baf4e57344deff84e3f016e6b51/Powerless.bat
author: Teymur Kheirkhabarov (idea), Mangatas Tondang, oscd.community, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2020-10-13
modified: 2023-02-20
tags:
    - attack.discovery
    - attack.t1069.001
logsource:
    product: windows
    category: process_creation
detection:
    selection_img:
        - Product|endswith: 'AccessChk'
        - Description|contains: 'Reports effective permissions'
        - Image|endswith:
              - '\accesschk.exe'
              - '\accesschk64.exe'
        - OriginalFileName: 'accesschk.exe'
    selection_cli:
        CommandLine|contains: # These are the most common flags used with this tool. You could add other combinations if needed
            - 'uwcqv '
            - 'kwsu '
            - 'qwsu '
            - 'uwdqs '
    condition: all of selection*
falsepositives:
    - System administrator Usage
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

all of selection*

Stage 1: selection_img

selection_img:
    - Product|endswith: 'AccessChk'
    - Description|contains: 'Reports effective permissions'
    - Image|endswith:
          - '\accesschk.exe'
          - '\accesschk64.exe'
    - OriginalFileName: 'accesschk.exe'

Stage 2: selection_cli

selection_cli:
    CommandLine|contains:
        - 'uwcqv '
        - 'kwsu '
        - 'qwsu '
        - 'uwdqs '

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

FieldKindValues
CommandLinematch
  • kwsu
  • qwsu
  • uwcqv
  • uwdqs
Descriptionmatch
  • Reports effective permissions
Imageends_with
  • \accesschk.exe corpus 3 (sigma 3)
  • \accesschk64.exe corpus 2 (sigma 2)
OriginalFileNameeq
  • accesschk.exe
Productends_with
  • AccessChk