Periodic Backup For System Registry Hives Enabled

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

Detects the enabling of the "EnablePeriodicBackup" registry value. Once enabled, The OS will backup System registry hives on restarts to the "C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack" folder. Windows creates a "RegIdleBackup" task to manage subsequent backups. Registry backup was a default behavior on Windows and was disabled as of "Windows 10, version 1803".

Known false positives

Legitimate need for RegBack feature by administrators.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Collection	`T1113` Screen Capture

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 13: RegistryEvent (Value Set)

Rule body

title: Periodic Backup For System Registry Hives Enabled
id: 973ef012-8f1a-4c40-93b4-7e659a5cd17f
status: test
description: |
    Detects the enabling of the "EnablePeriodicBackup" registry value. Once enabled, The OS will backup System registry hives on restarts to the "C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack" folder. Windows creates a "RegIdleBackup" task to manage subsequent backups.
    Registry backup was a default behavior on Windows and was disabled as of "Windows 10, version 1803".
references:
    - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/installing-updates-features-roles/system-registry-no-backed-up-regback-folder
author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2024-07-01
tags:
    - attack.collection
    - attack.t1113
logsource:
    category: registry_set
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        TargetObject|endswith: '\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup'
        Details: 'DWORD (0x00000001)'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate need for RegBack feature by administrators.
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    TargetObject|endswith: '\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup'
    Details: 'DWORD (0x00000001)'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`Details`	eq	`DWORD (0x00000001)` corpus 40 (sigma 36, chronicle 4)	`field:"Details" kind:eq value:"DWORD (0x00000001)"`
`TargetObject`	ends_with	`\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup`	`field:"TargetObject" kind:ends_with value:"\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup"`