Detection rules › Splunk

PowerShell XML Retrieval (Sysmon)

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

This use case detects PowerShell commands attempting to retrieve data from XML files via http or https

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

References

Telemetry coverage

ProviderRecord / event type
SysmonEvent ID 1: Process creation

Rule body

id: '15890.23905'
title: PowerShell XML Retrieval
description: 'This use case detects PowerShell commands attempting to retrieve data
  from XML files via http or https. Atomics T1059.001 Test #7 Atomics T1059.001 Test
  #8'
logic_format: Splunk
logic: '`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<")
  ("MsXml2.ServerXmlHttp" OR TERM(ComObject) OR "xml") | table _time, host, user process,
  process_*, signature_id | bin span=1s | stats values(*) as * by _time, host | where
  match(process, "(?i)http(s?):\/\/") and match (process, "(?i)xml") and match(process,
  "(?i)powershell|cmd\.exe") '
techniques:
- execution:command and scripting interpreter:powershell
- execution:command and scripting interpreter
technique_id:
- T1059.001
- T1059
data_category:
- Windows Sysmon
references:
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1059.001/T1059.001.md#atomic-test-7---powershell-msxml-com-object---with-prompt

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<") ("MsXml2.ServerXmlHttp" OR TERM(ComObject) OR "xml")

Stage 2: table

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

Stage 3: bucket

| bin span=1s

Stage 4: stats

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

Stage 5: where

| where match(process, "(?i)http(s?):\/\/") and match (process, "(?i)xml") and match(process, "(?i)powershell|cmd\.exe")

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

FieldKindValuesSearch
EventCodeeq
  • 1 corpus 241 (splunk 225, kusto 15, elastic 1)
field:"EventID" kind:eq value:"1"
processregex_match
  • "(?i)http(s?):\/\/" corpus 3 (splunk 3)
    • "(?i)powershell
    • cmd.exe"
    corpus 2 (splunk 2)
  • "(?i)xml" corpus 3 (splunk 3)
field:"CommandLine" kind:regex_match

Search terms

These SPL tokens match against raw event text.

StageTerm
1"<EventID>1<"
1"MsXml2.ServerXmlHttp"
1ComObject
1"xml"