Detection rules › Splunk

SoftPerfect Network Scanner Execution (Sysmon)

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

SoftPerfect Network Scanner is a free port scanner that can be run without installation. Due to its portability, it is an attractive tool for threat actors during post-compromise discovery activities as reported by DFIR. This use case detects executions of netscan.exe, netscan32.exe, or netscan64.exe. While the tool itself is not considered malicious, unexpected use should be investigated as it may indicate unauthorized discovery activity

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Discovery

References

Telemetry coverage

ProviderRecord / event type
SysmonEvent ID 1: Process creation

Rule body

id: '24804.45867'
title: SoftPerfect Network Scanner Execution
description: 'SoftPerfect Network Scanner is a free port scanner that can be run without
  installation. Due to its portability, it is an attractive tool for threat actors
  during post-compromise discovery activities as reported by DFIR. This use case detects
  executions of netscan.exe, netscan32.exe, or netscan64.exe. While the tool itself
  is not considered malicious, unexpected use should be investigated as it may indicate
  unauthorized discovery activity. -- Software Association: Akira'
logic_format: Splunk
logic: '`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<")
  "netscan" | where match(process_name, "(?i)\x5cnetscan(32|64)?\.exe") or match(process_path,
  "(?i)\x5cnetscan_portable") | table _time, host, user, process, process_*, parent_process,
  parent_process_*, user | bin span=1s | stats values(*) as * by _time, host '
techniques:
- discovery:network service discovery
technique_id: 
- T1046
data_category:
- Windows Sysmon
references:
- https://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/
- https://thedfirreport.com/2023/10/30/netsupport-intrusion-results-in-domain-compromise/
- https://thedfirreport.com/2020/07/13/ransomware-again-but-we-changed-the-rdp-port/
- https://thedfirreport.com/2023/08/28/html-smuggling-leads-to-domain-wide-ransomware/

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_sysmon` (TERM(EventCode=1) OR "<EventID>1<") "netscan"

Stage 2: where

| where match(process_name, "(?i)\x5cnetscan(32|64)?\.exe") or match(process_path, "(?i)\x5cnetscan_portable")

Stage 3: table

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

Stage 4: bucket

| bin span=1s

Stage 5: 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"
process_nameregex_match
  • "(?i)\x5cnetscan(32|64)?.exe" corpus 2 (splunk 2)
field:"process_name" kind:regex_match
process_pathregex_match
  • "(?i)\x5cnetscan_portable" corpus 2 (splunk 2)
field:"process_name" kind:regex_match

Search terms

These SPL tokens match against raw event text.

StageTerm
1"<EventID>1<"
1"netscan"