Detection rules › Splunk
FScan.exe Network Scan (Windows Event Log)
Threat actors may use fscan, an open-source security scanning tool, to perform network reconnaissance, identify open ports, and detect vulnerabilities within a target environment. When executed, fscan often leverages rapid ICMP pings to scan private IP ranges for live hosts. This use case detects internal network scans by identifying hosts that generate over 100 rapid ICMP ping requests to private IP addresses matching fscan's automated command style within a grouped event window (default 30s), which may indicate unauthorized network scanning activity from fscan or similar utilities.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Discovery | T1018 Remote System Discovery, T1046 Network Service Discovery |
References
Event coverage
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
Rule body yaml
id: '44122.86349'
title: FScan.exe Network Scan
description: Threat actors may use fscan, an open-source security scanning tool, to
perform network reconnaissance, identify open ports, and detect vulnerabilities
within a target environment. When executed, fscan often leverages rapid ICMP pings
to scan private IP ranges for live hosts. This use case detects internal network
scans by identifying hosts that generate over 100 rapid ICMP ping requests to private
IP addresses matching fscan's automated command style within a grouped event window
(default 30s), which may indicate unauthorized network scanning activity from fscan
or similar utilities.
logic_format: Splunk
logic: ' `get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_winevent` (TERM(EventCode=4688) OR
"<EventID>4688<" OR Type=Process) TERM(ping) "-n" "-w" | where match(process, "(?i)ping\s+-n\s1\s-w\s1\s(10\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}|172\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}|192\.168\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3})")
| table _time, host, user, host, process*, parent* | bin span=30s | stats values(*)
as * by _time, host | where event_count > 100 '
techniques:
- discovery:remote system discovery
- discovery:network service discovery
technique_id:
- T1018
- T1046
data_category:
- Process command-line parameters
- Windows event logs
references:
- https://github.com/shadow1ng/fscan
- https://blog.talosintelligence.com/new-persistent-attacks-japan/
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_winevent` (TERM(EventCode=4688) OR "<EventID>4688<" OR Type=Process) TERM(ping) "-n" "-w"
Stage 2: where
| where match(process, "(?i)ping\s+-n\s1\s-w\s1\s(10\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}|172\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}|192\.168\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3})")
Stage 3: table
| table _time, host, user, host, process*, parent*
Stage 4: bucket
| bin span=30s
Stage 5: stats
| stats values(*) as * by _time, host
Stage 6: where
| where event_count > 100
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 |
|
event_count | gt |
|
process | match |
|
Search terms
Bare-string tokens in the SPL search body. Splunk matches each token against _raw (the untyped raw event text) anywhere it appears, not against a specific field. These don't surface in the Indicators table because they aren't predicates on a known field.
| Stage | Term |
|---|---|
| 1 | TERM |
| 1 | "<EventID>4688<" |
| 1 | TERM |
| 1 | ping |
| 1 | "-n" |
| 1 | "-w" |