Detection: Windows Registry Payload Injection

Description

The following analytic detects suspiciously long data written to the Windows registry, a behavior often linked to fileless malware or persistence techniques. It leverages Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) telemetry, focusing on registry events with data lengths exceeding 512 characters. This activity is significant as it can indicate an attempt to evade traditional file-based defenses, making it crucial for SOC monitoring. If confirmed malicious, this technique could allow attackers to maintain persistence, execute code, or manipulate system configurations without leaving a conventional file footprint.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) AS firstTime max(_time) AS lastTime FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Processes BY _time span=1h Processes.user Processes.process_id Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_path Processes.dest Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process Processes.process_guid
 3| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
 4| join max=0 dest process_guid [
 5| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count from datamodel=Endpoint.Registry where Registry.registry_value_data=* by _time span=1h Registry.dest Registry.registry_path Registry.registry_value_name Registry.process_guid Registry.registry_value_data Registry.registry_key_name 
 6| `drop_dm_object_name(Registry)` 
 7| eval reg_data_len = len(registry_value_data) 
 8| where reg_data_len > 512] 
 9| fields firstTime lastTime dest user parent_process_name parent_process process_name process_path process registry_key_name registry_path registry_value_name registry_value_data process_guid 
10| where isnotnull(registry_value_data)
11| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
12| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
13| `windows_registry_payload_injection_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source	Supported App
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'	N/A

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

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

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

Unknown, possible custom scripting.

Associated Analytic Story

• Unusual Processes

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

References

• https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/tracking-evolution-gootloader-operations

• https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/kovter-an-evolving-malware-gone-fileless

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1027/011/

Detection Testing

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: 2