Detection rules › Splunk

rundll32 with No DLL in Command Line (Sysmon)

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

rundll32.exe is a legitimate Windows utility used to run functions stored in Dynamic Link Libraries. Typical usage would involve specifying a DLL file and a function to execute. Because rundll32 is a trusted system utility with the ability to execute code, it is a high value target for abuse by threat actors. This use case detects executions of rundll32.exe without a .dll referenced in the command line. Benign false positives from Internet Explorer parent processes have been filtered out

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

References

Telemetry coverage

ProviderRecord / event type
SysmonEvent ID 1: Process creation

Rule body

id: '26999.49289'
title: rundll32 with No DLL in Command Line
description: rundll32.exe is a legitimate Windows utility used to run functions stored
  in Dynamic Link Libraries. Typical usage would involve specifying a DLL file and
  a function to execute. Because rundll32 is a trusted system utility with the ability
  to execute code, it is a high value target for abuse by threat actors. This use
  case detects executions of rundll32.exe without a .dll referenced in the command
  line. Benign false positives from Internet Explorer parent processes have been filtered
  out. Living Off the Land Binary and Scripts (LOLBAS) (LOLBIN)
logic_format: Splunk
logic: '`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<")
  TERM(rundll32) OR "rundll32.exe" | where (match(process_name, "(?i)rundll32\.exe")
  and not match(process, "(?i)(^\"C:\x5cWindows\x5csystem32\x5crundll32\.exe\"$)|(\.dll)"))
  and (not match(parent_process_name, "(?i)iexplore\.exe") and not match(process,
  "(?i)InetCpl\.cpl\,ClearMyTracksByProcess")) | table _time, host, user, process,
  process_*, parent_process, parent_process_* | bin span=1s | stats values(*) as *
  by _time, host '
techniques:
- defense-evasion:system binary proxy execution:rundll32
technique_id:
- T1218.011
data_category:
- Windows Sysmon
references:
- https://redcanary.com/threat-detection-report/techniques/rundll32/

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<") TERM(rundll32) OR "rundll32.exe"

Stage 2: where

| where (match(process_name, "(?i)rundll32\.exe") and not match(process, "(?i)(^\"C:\x5cWindows\x5csystem32\x5crundll32\.exe\"$)|(\.dll)")) and (not match(parent_process_name, "(?i)iexplore\.exe") and not match(process, "(?i)InetCpl\.cpl\,ClearMyTracksByProcess"))

Stage 3: table

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

Stage 4: bucket

| bin span=1s

Stage 5: stats

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

Exclusions

The rule actively suppresses these predicates.

FieldKindExcluded valuesSearch
parent_process_nameregex_match"(?i)iexplore.exe"excludes:parent_process_name
processregex_match"(?i)(^\"C:\x5cWindows\x5csystem32\x5crundll32.exe\"$), (.dll)"excludes:process
processregex_match"(?i)InetCpl.cpl\,ClearMyTracksByProcess"excludes:process

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"
process_nameregex_match
  • "(?i)rundll32.exe" corpus 6 (splunk 6)
field:"process_name" kind:regex_match

Search terms

These SPL tokens match against raw event text.

StageTerm
1"<EventID>1<"
1rundll32
1"rundll32.exe"