Detection: Credential Dumping via Copy Command from Shadow Copy

Description

The following analytic detects the use of the copy command to dump credentials from a shadow copy. It leverages Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) data to identify processes with command lines referencing critical files like "sam", "security", "system", and "ntds.dit" in system directories. This activity is significant as it indicates an attempt to extract credentials, a common technique for unauthorized access and privilege escalation. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to attackers gaining sensitive login information, escalating privileges, moving laterally within the network, or accessing sensitive data.

Search

1
2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_cmd` (Processes.process=*\\system32\\config\\sam* OR Processes.process=*\\system32\\config\\security* OR Processes.process=*\\system32\\config\\system* OR Processes.process=*\\windows\\ntds\\ntds.dit*) by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.process_name Processes.process  Processes.parent_process Processes.original_file_name Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id  Processes.parent_process_name 
3| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `credential_dumping_via_copy_command_from_shadow_copy_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	N/A	'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

unknown

Associated Analytic Story

• Credential Dumping

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

References

• https://2017.zeronights.org/wp-content/uploads/materials/ZN17_Kheirkhabarov_Hunting_for_Credentials_Dumping_in_Windows_Environment.pdf

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: 4