Detection: Windows Process With NamedPipe CommandLine

Description

The following analytic detects processes with command lines containing named pipes. It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process command-line executions. This behavior is significant as it is often used by adversaries, such as those behind the Olympic Destroyer malware, for inter-process communication post-injection, aiding in defense evasion and privilege escalation. If confirmed malicious, this activity could allow attackers to maintain persistence, escalate privileges, or evade defenses, potentially leading to further compromise of the system.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5
 6from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where
 7
 8Processes.process = "*\\\\.\\pipe\\*"
 9(
10    NOT Processes.parent_process_path IN (
11        "*:\\Program Files (x86)\\*",
12        "*:\\Program Files\\*",
13        "*:\\Windows\\System32\\*",
14        "*:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\*"
15    )
16    OR
17    NOT Processes.process_path IN (
18        "*:\\Program Files (x86)\\*",
19        "*:\\Program Files\\*",
20        "*:\\Windows\\System32\\*",
21        "*:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\*"
22    )
23)
24
25by Processes.action Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process
26   Processes.parent_process_exec Processes.parent_process_guid Processes.parent_process_id
27   Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process
28   Processes.process_exec Processes.process_guid Processes.process_hash
29   Processes.process_id Processes.process_integrity_level Processes.process_name
30   Processes.process_path Processes.user Processes.user_id Processes.vendor_product
31
32
33| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
34
35| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
36
37| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
38
39| `windows_process_with_namedpipe_commandline_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	'XmlWinEventLog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'
Windows Event Log Security 4688	Windows	'XmlWinEventLog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Security'
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	Other	'crowdstrike:events:sensor'	'crowdstrike'

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

Normal browser application may use this technique. Please update the filter macros to remove false positives.

Associated Analytic Story

• Windows Defense Evasion Tactics

Intermediate Findings

References

• https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/olympic-destroyer.html

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: 10