Detection: Windows Modify Registry EnableLinkedConnections

Updated Date: 2024-09-30 ID: 93048164-3358-4af0-8680-aa5f38440516 Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects a suspicious modification to the Windows registry setting for EnableLinkedConnections. It leverages data from the Endpoint.Registry datamodel to identify changes where the registry path is "*\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLinkedConnections" and the value is set to "0x00000001". This activity is significant because enabling linked connections can allow network shares to be accessed with both standard and administrator-level privileges, a technique often abused by malware like BlackByte ransomware. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive network resources, escalating the attacker's privileges.

Search

1
2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Registry WHERE (Registry.registry_path= "*\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System\\EnableLinkedConnections" Registry.registry_value_data = "0x00000001") BY _time span=1h Registry.registry_path Registry.registry_key_name Registry.registry_value_name Registry.registry_value_data Registry.process_guid Registry.dest 
3| `drop_dm_object_name(Registry)` 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `windows_modify_registry_enablelinkedconnections_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Sysmon EventID 12	Windows	`'xmlwineventlog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`
Sysmon EventID 13	Windows	`'xmlwineventlog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`

Macros Used

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

windows_modify_registry_enablelinkedconnections_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
T1112	Modify Registry	Defense Evasion

KillChainPhase.EXPLOITAITON

NistCategory.DE_CM

Cis18Value.CIS_10

APT19

APT32

APT38

APT41

Aquatic Panda

Blue Mockingbird

Dragonfly

Earth Lusca

Ember Bear

FIN8

Gamaredon Group

Gorgon Group

Indrik Spider

Kimsuky

LuminousMoth

Magic Hound

Patchwork

Saint Bear

Silence

TA505

Threat Group-3390

Turla

Volt Typhoon

Wizard Spider

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 Notable	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type TTP. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting and generate Notable Events.

Implementation

To successfully implement this search you need to be ingesting information on process that include the name of the process responsible for the changes from your endpoints into the Endpoint datamodel in the Registry node. Also make sure that this registry was included in your config files ex. sysmon config to be monitored.

Known False Positives

Administrators may enable or disable this feature that may cause some false positive.

Associated Analytic Story

BlackByte Ransomware

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message	Risk Score	Impact	Confidence
A registry modification in Windows EnableLinkedConnections configuration on $dest$	49	70	70

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

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/07/06/the-five-day-job-a-blackbyte-ransomware-intrusion-case-study/

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: 3