Detection rules › Splunk

Suspicious Parent Process for msiexec.exe (Sysmon)

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

msiexec.exe is a Windows system component used to install and modify software packages using Windows Installer. Threat actors may abuse msiexec.exe to install malicious software or execute scripts, leveraging its legitimate appearance to bypass security measures and gain persistence on a targeted system as observed in FlawedGrace attacks. This use case detects executions of msiexec.exe with suspicious parent processes

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

References

Telemetry coverage

ProviderRecord / event type
SysmonEvent ID 1: Process creation

Rule body

id: '24143.44553'
title: Suspicious Parent Process for msiexec.exe
description: msiexec.exe is a Windows system component used to install and modify
  software packages using Windows Installer. Threat actors may abuse msiexec.exe to
  install malicious software or execute scripts, leveraging its legitimate appearance
  to bypass security measures and gain persistence on a targeted system as observed
  in FlawedGrace attacks. This use case detects executions of msiexec.exe with suspicious
  parent processes. 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(msiexec) OR "msiexec.exe" | regex parent_process_name="(?i)(spoolsv|powershell|pwsh|cmd|svchost|winlogon|taskhost|wininit)\.exe"
  | table _time, host, user process, process_*, parent_process_name, parent_process_*
  | bin span=1s | stats values(*) as * by _time, host '
techniques:
- defense-evasion:system binary proxy execution:msiexec
technique_id:
- T1218.007
data_category:
- Windows Sysmon
references:
- https://thedfirreport.com/2023/06/12/a-truly-graceful-wipe-out/

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

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

Stage 2: regex

| regex parent_process_name="(?i)(spoolsv|powershell|pwsh|cmd|svchost|winlogon|taskhost|wininit)\.exe"

Stage 3: table

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

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"
parent_process_nameregex_match
  • "(?i)(spoolsv|powershell|pwsh|cmd|svchost|winlogon|taskhost|wininit).exe" corpus 2 (splunk 2)
field:"parent_process_name" kind:regex_match

Search terms

These SPL tokens match against raw event text.

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