Detection: High Process Termination Frequency

Updated Date: 2024-09-30 ID: 17cd75b2-8666-11eb-9ab4-acde48001122 Author: Teoderick Contreras Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic identifies a high frequency of process termination events on a computer within a short period. It leverages Sysmon EventCode 5 logs to detect instances where 15 or more processes are terminated within a 3-second window. This behavior is significant as it is commonly associated with ransomware attempting to avoid exceptions during file encryption. If confirmed malicious, this activity could indicate an active ransomware attack, potentially leading to widespread file encryption and significant data loss.

Search

1`sysmon` EventCode=5 
2|bin _time span=3s 
3|stats values(Image) as proc_terminated min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime  count by _time dest EventCode ProcessID 
4| where count >= 15 
5| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
6| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
7| `high_process_termination_frequency_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Sysmon EventID 5	Windows	`'xmlwineventlog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
security_content_ctime	`convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)`
high_process_termination_frequency_filter	`search *`

high_process_termination_frequency_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1486	Data Encrypted for Impact	Impact

KillChainPhase.ACTIONS_ON_OBJECTIVES

NistCategory.DE_AE

Cis18Value.CIS_10

APT38

APT41

Akira

FIN7

FIN8

INC Ransom

Indrik Spider

Magic Hound

Moonstone Sleet

Sandworm Team

Scattered Spider

TA505

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the Image (process full path of terminated process) from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA.

Known False Positives

admin or user tool that can terminate multiple process.

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message	Risk Score	Impact	Confidence
High frequency process termination (more than 15 processes within 3s) detected on host $dest$	72	90	80

The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

References

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational`	`XmlWinEventLog`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational`	`XmlWinEventLog`

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 5