Detection rules › Splunk

QEMU Network Tunneling - Windows (Sysmon)

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

QEMU is an open-source machine emulator that allows for running multiple operating systems as separate processes. The use of QEMU executions with specific networking commands may indicate attempts at network tunneling or bypassing security controls, which was observed in intrusion reported on SecureList. This use case detects QEMU executions with command-line arguments that could be used to tunnel traffic.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

References

Telemetry coverage

ProviderRecord / event type
SysmonEvent ID 1: Process creation

Rule body

id: '29624.53381'
title: QEMU Network Tunneling - Windows
description: 'QEMU is an open-source machine emulator that allows for running multiple
  operating systems as separate processes. The use of QEMU executions with specific
  networking commands may indicate attempts at network tunneling or bypassing security
  controls, which was observed in intrusion reported on SecureList. This use case
  detects QEMU executions with command-line arguments that could be used to tunnel
  traffic. '
logic_format: Splunk
logic: '`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<")
  "qemu-system-" ("-net " OR "-netdev" OR "-redir" OR "socket" OR "listen" OR "-device"
  OR "hostfwd=") | table _time, host, user, process, process_*, parent_process_name,
  parent_process_* | bin span=1s | stats values(*) as * by _time, host '
techniques:
- command-and-control:protocol tunneling
- command-and-control:non-application layer protocol
technique_id: 
- T1572
- T1095
data_category:
- Windows Sysmon
references:
- https://securelist.com/network-tunneling-with-qemu/111803/

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<") "qemu-system-" ("-net " OR "-netdev" OR "-redir" OR "socket" OR "listen" OR "-device" OR "hostfwd=")

Stage 2: table

| table _time, host, user, process, process_*, parent_process_name, parent_process_*

Stage 3: bucket

| bin span=1s

Stage 4: stats

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

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"

Search terms

These SPL tokens match against raw event text.

StageTerm
1"<EventID>1<"
1"qemu-system-"
1"-net "
1"-netdev"
1"-redir"
1"socket"
1"listen"
1"-device"
1"hostfwd="