Detection rules › Splunk

ngen.exe File Download (Windows Event Log)

Group by
_time, host
Source
github.com/anvilogic-forge/armory

ngen.exe (Native Image Generator) is a legitimate Windows binary that compiles .NET assemblies into native machine code to improve application performance. Threat actors can abuse ngen.exe to download files. This use case detects ngen.exe executions with commands to download a file from a remote location

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Command & Control

References

Telemetry coverage

Rule body

id: '35366.62196'
title: ngen.exe File Download
description: ngen.exe (Native Image Generator) is a legitimate Windows binary that
  compiles .NET assemblies into native machine code to improve application performance.
  Threat actors can abuse ngen.exe to download files. This use case detects ngen.exe
  executions with commands to download a file from a remote location. Living Off the
  Land Binary and Scripts (LOLBAS) (LOLBIN)
logic_format: Splunk
logic: '`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_winevent` (TERM(EventCode=4688) OR
  "<EventID>4688<" OR Type=Process) "ngen.exe" | regex process_name="(?i)ngen\.exe"|
  regex process="(?i)ngen(\.exe(\"|\'')?)?\s+(\"|\'')?[A-Za-z0-9]{2,6}:\/\/[^\s]+"|
  table _time, host, user, process, process_*, parent_* | bin span=1s | stats values(*)
  as * by _time, host '
techniques:
- command-and-control:ingress tool transfer
technique_id: 
- T1105
data_category:
- Process command-line parameters
- Windows event logs
references:
- https://lolbas-project.github.io/lolbas/Binaries/Ngen/
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1105/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/tools/ngen-exe-native-image-generator

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_winevent` (TERM(EventCode=4688) OR "<EventID>4688<" OR Type=Process) "ngen.exe"

Stage 2: regex

| regex process_name="(?i)ngen\.exe"

Stage 3: regex

| regex process="(?i)ngen(\.exe(\"|\')?)?\s+(\"|\')?[A-Za-z0-9]{2,6}:\/\/[^\s]+"

Stage 4: table

| table _time, host, user, process, process_*, parent_*

Stage 5: bucket

| bin span=1s

Stage 6: stats

| stats values(*) as * by _time, host

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

FieldKindValuesSearch
EventCodeeq
  • 4688 corpus 317 (splunk 283, kusto 33, elastic 1)
field:"EventID" kind:eq value:"4688"
processregex_match
  • "(?i)ngen(.exe(\"|\')?)?\s+(\"|\')?[A-Za-z0-9]{2,6}:\/\/[^\s]+" corpus 3 (splunk 3)
field:"CommandLine" kind:regex_match
process_nameregex_match
  • "(?i)ngen.exe" corpus 2 (splunk 2)
field:"process_name" kind:regex_match

Search terms

These SPL tokens match against raw event text.

StageTerm
1"<EventID>4688<"
1"ngen.exe"