Detection: Windows Potato Privilege Escalation Tool Execution

Description

Detects execution of known Potato-family privilege escalation tools based on original file name, process name, or binary path. A tool class that has been a dominant post-compromise privilege escalation method for over a decade and remains actively used by ransomware operators, red teams, and nation-state actors alike. The Potato family exploits Windows token impersonation and privilege abuse to escalate from a service account, IIS worker process, or other restricted context to SYSTEM. The core abuse chain across most variants involves tricking a SYSTEM-level process into authenticating to an attacker-controlled endpoint, capturing that authentication, and impersonating the resulting SYSTEM token to spawn an elevated process.

Search

 1
 2| tstats summariesonly=false allow_old_summaries=true
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5
 6from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where
 7
 8Processes.original_file_name IN (
 9    "*CertPotato*",
10    "*CoercedPotato*",
11    "*GenericPotato*",
12    "*GhostPotato*",
13    "*GodPotato*",
14    "*HotPotato*",
15    "*JuicyPotato*",
16    "*LocalPotato*",
17    "*LonelyPotato*",
18    "*RoguePotato*",
19    "*RottenPotato*",
20    "*SharpPotato*",
21    "*SweetPotato*"
22)
23OR Processes.process_path IN (
24    "*CertPotato*",
25    "*CoercedPotato*",
26    "*GenericPotato*",
27    "*GhostPotato*",
28    "*GodPotato*",
29    "*HotPotato*",
30    "*JuicyPotato*",
31    "*LocalPotato*",
32    "*LonelyPotato*",
33    "*RoguePotato*",
34    "*RottenPotato*",
35    "*SharpPotato*",
36    "*SweetPotato*"
37)
38
39by Processes.process Processes.vendor_product Processes.user_id Processes.process_hash
40   Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_exec Processes.action
41   Processes.dest Processes.process_current_directory Processes.process_path
42   Processes.process_integrity_level Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process
43   Processes.parent_process_path Processes.parent_process_guid Processes.parent_process_id
44   Processes.process_guid Processes.process_id Processes.user Processes.process_name
45
46
47| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
48
49| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
50
51| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
52
53| `windows_potato_privilege_escalation_tool_execution_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

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

Some legitimate security tools or authorized pentesting software may use potato privilege escalation methods for testing purposes. Filter alerts based on approved security testing activities.

Associated Analytic Story

• Windows Privilege Escalation

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Potential Potato Privilege Escalation Tools activity observed on $dest$ via $process$.

References

• https://hideandsec.sh/books/windows-sNL/page/in-the-potato-family-i-want-them-all

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: 1