Detection: Windows Suspicious Child Process of TieringEngineService.exe

Updated Date: 2026-05-01 ID: 69edec6c-877e-4423-9b9b-025b589123a8 Author: Raven Tait, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

Detects the RedSun privilege escalation exploit delivering a SYSTEM-level shell to the attacker's session. RedSun replaces the legitimate TieringEngineService.exe with a malicious binary, which launches a process as SYSTEM, usually some sort of shell or shell spawner (conhost.exe, cmd.exe, PowerShell, etc.) in the attacker's active session.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5
 6FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Processes WHERE
 7
 8Processes.parent_process_name="TieringEngineService.exe"
 9(
10    Processes.process IN (
11        "*bitsadmin.exe*",
12        "*cmd.exe*",
13        "*conhost.exe*",
14        "*cscript.exe*",
15        "*curl.exe*",
16        "*powershell.exe*",
17        "*pwsh.exe*",
18        "*rundll32.exe*",
19        "*wmic.exe*"
20    )
21    OR
22    Processes.process_name IN (
23        "bitsadmin.exe",
24        "cmd.exe",
25        "conhost.exe",
26        "cscript.exe",
27        "curl.exe",
28        "powershell.exe",
29        "pwsh.exe",
30        "rundll32.exe",
31        "wmic.exe"
32    )
33)
34Processes.user IN (
35    "*AUTHORITY*",
36    "*System*"
37)
38
39BY Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.original_file_name
40   Processes.parent_process Processes.process_name Processes.process
41   Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id
42   Processes.parent_process_name action
43   parent_process_exec parent_process_guid
44   parent_process_path process_exec process_guid
45   process_hash process_integrity_level
46   process_path user_id vendor_product
47
48
49| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
50
51| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
52
53| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
54
55| `windows_suspicious_child_process_of_tieringengineservice_exe_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	Other	`'crowdstrike:events:sensor'`	`'crowdstrike'`
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	`'XmlWinEventLog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`
Windows Event Log Security 4688	Windows	`'XmlWinEventLog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Security'`

Macros Used

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

windows_suspicious_child_process_of_tieringengineservice_exe_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
T1068	Exploitation for Privilege Escalation	Privilege Escalation

Exploitation

DE.CM

CIS 10

CVE

CVE-2026-33825

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 Finding (Notable)	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Intermediate Finding (Risk Event)	No

TTP detections generate a Finding (Notable) and may generate Intermediate Findings (Risk Events) for associated entities.

Implementation

The detection is based on data that originates from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents. These agents are designed to provide security-related telemetry from the endpoints where the agent is installed. To implement this search, you must ingest logs that contain the process GUID, process name, and parent process. Additionally, you must ingest complete command-line executions. These logs must be processed using the appropriate Splunk Technology Add-ons that are specific to the EDR product. The logs must also be mapped to the Processes node of the Endpoint data model. Use the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to normalize the field names and speed up the data modeling process.

Known False Positives

No false positives have been identified at this time.

Associated Analytic Story

Finding

Title	Entity Field	Entity Type	Risk Score
Possible suspicious child process $process_path$ spawned from $parent_process_path$ on $dest$	dest	system	50

Threat Objects

Field	Type
process	process
process_name	process_name
parent_process_name	parent_process_name

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: 1