New PDQDeploy Service - Client Side

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

Detects PDQDeploy service installation on the target system. When a package is deployed via PDQDeploy it installs a remote service on the target machine with the name "PDQDeployRunner-X" where "X" is an integer starting from 1

Known false positives

Legitimate use of the tool

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Persistence	`T1543.003` Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service
Privilege Escalation	`T1543.003` Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Service-Control-Manager	Event ID 7045: A service was installed in the system.

Rule body

title: New PDQDeploy Service - Client Side
id: b98a10af-1e1e-44a7-bab2-4cc026917648
status: test
description: |
    Detects PDQDeploy service installation on the target system.
    When a package is deployed via PDQDeploy it installs a remote service on the target machine with the name "PDQDeployRunner-X" where "X" is an integer starting from 1
references:
    - https://documentation.pdq.com/PDQDeploy/13.0.3.0/index.html?windows-services.htm
author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2022-07-22
tags:
    - attack.persistence
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.t1543.003
logsource:
    product: windows
    service: system
detection:
    selection_root:
        Provider_Name: 'Service Control Manager'
        EventID: 7045
    selection_service:
        - ImagePath|contains: 'PDQDeployRunner-'
        - ServiceName|startswith: 'PDQDeployRunner-'
    condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate use of the tool
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

all of selection_*

Stage 1: `selection_root`

selection_root:
    Provider_Name: 'Service Control Manager'
    EventID: 7045

Stage 2: `selection_service`

selection_service:
    - ImagePath|contains: 'PDQDeployRunner-'
    - ServiceName|startswith: 'PDQDeployRunner-'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`ImagePath`	match	`PDQDeployRunner-`	`field:"ImagePath" kind:match value:"PDQDeployRunner-"`
`Provider_Name`	eq	`Service Control Manager` corpus 50 (sigma 50)	`field:"Provider_Name" kind:eq value:"Service Control Manager"`
`ServiceName`	starts_with	`PDQDeployRunner-`	`field:"ServiceName" kind:starts_with value:"PDQDeployRunner-"`