Detection: Drop IcedID License dat

Updated Date: 2024-11-13 ID: b7a045fc-f14a-11eb-8e79-acde48001122 Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk Type: Hunting Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects the dropping of a suspicious file named "license.dat" in %appdata% or %programdata%. This behavior is associated with the IcedID malware, which uses this file to inject its core bot into other processes for banking credential theft. The detection leverages Sysmon EventCode 11 to monitor file creation events in these directories. This activity is significant as it indicates a potential malware infection aiming to steal sensitive banking information. If confirmed malicious, the attacker could gain unauthorized access to financial data, leading to significant financial loss and data breaches.

1`sysmon` EventCode= 11  TargetFilename = "*\\license.dat" AND (TargetFilename="*\\appdata\\*" OR TargetFilename="*\\programdata\\*") 
2|stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by TargetFilename EventCode process_id  process_name dest 
3| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
4| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
5| `drop_icedid_license_dat_filter`

Data Source

Name Platform Sourcetype Source
Sysmon EventID 11 Windows icon Windows 'xmlwineventlog' 'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'

Macros Used

Name Value
security_content_ctime convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)
drop_icedid_license_dat_filter search *
drop_icedid_license_dat_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
T1204 User Execution Execution
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution
Installation
DE.AE
CIS 10

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 False
This configuration file applies to all detections of type hunting.

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

unknown

Associated Analytic Story

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: 4