Detection rules › Splunk
WMI subscription execution (Windows Event Log)
Adversaries may establish persistence and elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) event subscription
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Execution | |
| Persistence | |
| Privilege Escalation |
References
Telemetry coverage
| Provider | Record / event type |
|---|---|
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688: A new process has been created. |
Rule body
id: '5975.6319'
title: WMI subscription execution
description: 'Adversaries may establish persistence and elevate privileges by executing
malicious content triggered by a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) event
subscription. -- Threat Actor Association: APT29, Metador, Mustang Panda (aka. Stately
Taurus//Earth Preta/BRONZE PRESIDENT/TA416/RedDelta), TA551 - Software Association:
BumbleBee, TargetCompany, TrailBlazer, Trickbot -- Atomics T1047 Test#7 Atomics
T1047 Test#8 Atomics T1047 Test#9 -- While this use case can detect the above atomics,
it is not mapped to its MITRE execution techniques due to adversaries utilizing
this method of WMI for Privilege-Escalation and Persistence.'
logic_format: Splunk
logic: '`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_winevent` (TERM(EventCode=4688) OR
"<EventID>4688<") TERM(WmiPrvSE) | regex parent_process_name="(?i)(WmiPrvSE)" |
table _time, host, user parent_*, process, process_*, signature_id | bin span=1s
| stats values(*) as * by _time, host '
techniques:
- persistence:event triggered execution:windows management instrumentation event subscription
- execution:windows management instrumentation
- privilege-escalation:event triggered execution:windows management instrumentation
event subscription
technique_id:
- T1546.003
- T1047
data_category:
- Process command-line parameters
- Windows event logs
references:
- https://pentestlab.blog/2020/01/21/persistence-wmi-event-subscription/
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
`get_endpoint_data` `get_endpoint_data_winevent` (TERM(EventCode=4688) OR "<EventID>4688<") TERM(WmiPrvSE)
Stage 2: regex
| regex parent_process_name="(?i)(WmiPrvSE)"
Stage 3: table
| table _time, host, user parent_*, process, process_*, signature_id
Stage 4: bucket
| bin span=1s
Stage 5: stats
| stats values(*) as * by _time, host
Indicators
These rows show field, operator, and value matches.
| Field | Kind | Values | Search |
|---|---|---|---|
EventCode | eq |
| field:"EventID" kind:eq value:"4688" |
parent_process_name | regex_match |
| field:"parent_process_name" kind:regex_match |
Search terms
These SPL tokens match against raw event text.
| Stage | Term |
|---|---|
| 1 | "<EventID>4688<" |
| 1 | WmiPrvSE |