Detection rules › Splunk
Drop IcedID License dat
The following analytic detects the dropping of a suspicious file named "license.dat" in %appdata% or %programdata%. This behavior is associated with the IcedID malware, which uses this file to inject its core bot into other processes for banking credential theft. The detection leverages Sysmon EventCode 11 to monitor file creation events in these directories. This activity is significant as it indicates a potential malware infection aiming to steal sensitive banking information. If confirmed malicious, the attacker could gain unauthorized access to financial data, leading to significant financial loss and data breaches.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Execution | T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File |
Event coverage
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 11 | FileCreate |
Rule body splunk
name: Drop IcedID License dat
id: b7a045fc-f14a-11eb-8e79-acde48001122
version: 8
creation_date: '2021-08-05'
modification_date: '2026-05-13'
author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
status: production
type: Hunting
description: The following analytic detects the dropping of a suspicious file named "license.dat" in %appdata% or %programdata%. This behavior is associated with the IcedID malware, which uses this file to inject its core bot into other processes for banking credential theft. The detection leverages Sysmon EventCode 11 to monitor file creation events in these directories. This activity is significant as it indicates a potential malware infection aiming to steal sensitive banking information. If confirmed malicious, the attacker could gain unauthorized access to financial data, leading to significant financial loss and data breaches.
data_source:
- Sysmon EventID 11
search: '`sysmon` EventCode= 11 TargetFilename = "*\\license.dat" AND (TargetFilename="*\\appdata\\*" OR TargetFilename="*\\programdata\\*") |stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by TargetFilename EventCode process_id process_name dest | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` | `drop_icedid_license_dat_filter`'
how_to_implement: To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, parent process, and command-line executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA.
known_false_positives: No false positives have been identified at this time.
references:
- https://www.cisecurity.org/insights/white-papers/security-primer-icedid
analytic_story:
- IcedID
asset_type: Endpoint
mitre_attack_id:
- T1204.002
product:
- Splunk Enterprise
- Splunk Enterprise Security
- Splunk Cloud
category: endpoint
security_domain: endpoint
tests:
- name: True Positive Test
attack_data:
- data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/malware/icedid/simulated_icedid/windows-sysmon.log
source: XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational
sourcetype: XmlWinEventLog
test_type: unit
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
`sysmon` EventCode= 11 TargetFilename = "*\\license.dat" AND (TargetFilename="*\\appdata\\*" OR TargetFilename="*\\programdata\\*")
Stage 2: stats
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by TargetFilename EventCode process_id process_name dest
Stage 3: search
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
Stage 4: search
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
Stage 5: search
| `drop_icedid_license_dat_filter`
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.
| Field | Kind | Values |
|---|---|---|
EventCode | eq |
|
TargetFilename | eq |
|