Detection rules › Splunk
Trickbot Named Pipe
The following analytic detects the creation or connection to a named pipe associated with Trickbot malware. It leverages Sysmon EventCodes 17 and 18 to identify named pipes with the pattern "\pipe\*lacesomepipe". This activity is significant as Trickbot uses named pipes for communication with its command and control (C2) servers, facilitating data exfiltration and command execution. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could allow attackers to maintain persistence, execute arbitrary commands, and exfiltrate sensitive information from the compromised system.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Privilege Escalation | T1055 Process Injection |
| Stealth | T1055 Process Injection |
Event coverage
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 17 | PipeEvent (Pipe Created) |
| Sysmon | Event ID 18 | PipeEvent (Pipe Connected) |
Rule body splunk
name: Trickbot Named Pipe
id: 1804b0a4-a682-11eb-8f68-acde48001122
version: 11
creation_date: '2021-04-26'
modification_date: '2026-05-13'
author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
status: production
type: TTP
description: The following analytic detects the creation or connection to a named pipe associated with Trickbot malware. It leverages Sysmon EventCodes 17 and 18 to identify named pipes with the pattern "\\pipe\\*lacesomepipe". This activity is significant as Trickbot uses named pipes for communication with its command and control (C2) servers, facilitating data exfiltration and command execution. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could allow attackers to maintain persistence, execute arbitrary commands, and exfiltrate sensitive information from the compromised system.
data_source:
- Sysmon EventID 17
- Sysmon EventID 18
search: '`sysmon` EventCode IN (17,18) PipeName="\\pipe\\*lacesomepipe" | stats min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime count by dest dvc pipe_name process_exec process_guid process_id process_name process_path signature signature_id user_id vendor_product Image PipeName | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` | `trickbot_named_pipe_filter`'
how_to_implement: To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name and pipename from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA. .
known_false_positives: No false positives have been identified at this time.
references:
- https://labs.vipre.com/trickbot-and-its-modules/
- https://whitehat.eu/incident-response-case-study-featuring-ryuk-and-trickbot-part-2/
drilldown_searches:
- name: View the detection results for - "$dest$"
search: '%original_detection_search% | search dest = "$dest$"'
earliest_offset: $info_min_time$
latest_offset: $info_max_time$
- name: View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$dest$"
search: '| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$dest$") | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(search_name) as "Search Name" values(risk_message) as "Risk Message" values(analyticstories) as "Analytic Stories" values(annotations._all) as "Annotations" values(annotations.mitre_attack.mitre_tactic) as "ATT&CK Tactics" by normalized_risk_object | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`'
earliest_offset: 7d
latest_offset: "0"
finding:
title: Possible Trickbot namedpipe created on $dest$ by $process_name$
entity:
field: dest
type: system
score: 50
threat_objects:
- field: process_name
type: process_name
analytic_story:
- Trickbot
- Hellcat Ransomware
asset_type: Endpoint
mitre_attack_id:
- T1055
product:
- Splunk Enterprise
- Splunk Enterprise Security
- Splunk Cloud
category: endpoint
security_domain: endpoint
tests:
- name: True Positive Test
attack_data:
- data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/malware/trickbot/namedpipe/windows-sysmon.log
source: XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational
sourcetype: XmlWinEventLog
test_type: unit
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
`sysmon` EventCode IN (17,18) PipeName="\\pipe\\*lacesomepipe"
Stage 2: stats
| stats min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime count by dest dvc pipe_name process_exec process_guid process_id process_name process_path signature signature_id user_id vendor_product Image PipeName
Stage 3: search
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
Stage 4: search
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
Stage 5: search
| `trickbot_named_pipe_filter`
Indicators
Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.