Detection: Windows Default Group Policy Object Modified with GPME
Description
The following analytic identifies the potential edition of a default Group Policy Object. A fresh installation of an Active Directory network will typically contain two default group policy objects Default Domain Controllers Policy and Default Domain Policy. The default domain controllers policy is used to enforce and set policies to all the domain controllers within the domain environment. The default domain policy is linked to all users and computers by default. An adversary who has obtained privileged access to an Active Directory network may modify the default group policy objects to obtain further access, deploy persistence or execute malware across a large number of hosts. Security teams should monitor the edition of the default GPOs.
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Implementation
To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, parent process, and command-line executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA.
Known False Positives
The default Group Policy Objects within an AD network may be legitimately updated for administrative operations, filter as needed.
Associated Analytic Story
Risk Based Analytics (RBA)
| Risk Message | Risk Score | Impact | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| A default group policy object was opened with Group Policy Manage Editor on $dest$ | 50 | 100 | 50 |
References
Version: 5