Detection: Ransomware Notes bulk creation

Updated Date: 2024-09-30 ID: eff7919a-8330-11eb-83f8-acde48001122 Author: Teoderick Contreras Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic identifies the bulk creation of ransomware notes (e.g., .txt, .html, .hta files) on an infected machine. It leverages Sysmon EventCode 11 to detect multiple instances of these file types being created within a short time frame. This activity is significant as it often indicates an active ransomware attack, where the attacker is notifying the victim of the encryption. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could lead to widespread data encryption, rendering critical files inaccessible and potentially causing significant operational disruption.

Search

1`sysmon` EventCode=11 file_name IN ("*\.txt","*\.html","*\.hta") 
2|bin _time span=10s 
3| stats min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime dc(TargetFilename) as unique_readme_path_count values(TargetFilename) as list_of_readme_path by Computer Image file_name 
4| rename Computer as dest 
5| where unique_readme_path_count >= 15 
6| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
7| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
8| `ransomware_notes_bulk_creation_filter`

Data Source

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

Macros Used

Name	Value
security_content_ctime	`convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)`
ransomware_notes_bulk_creation_filter	`search *`

ransomware_notes_bulk_creation_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
T1486	Data Encrypted for Impact	Impact

KillChainPhase.ACTIONS_ON_OBJECTIVES

NistCategory.DE_AE

Cis18Value.CIS_10

APT38

APT41

Akira

FIN7

FIN8

INC Ransom

Indrik Spider

Magic Hound

Moonstone Sleet

Sandworm Team

Scattered Spider

TA505

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	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

You must be ingesting data that records the filesystem activity from your hosts to populate the Endpoint file-system data model node. If you are using Sysmon, you will need a Splunk Universal Forwarder on each endpoint from which you want to collect data.

Known False Positives

unknown

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message	Risk Score	Impact	Confidence
A high frequency file creation of $file_name$ in different file path in host $dest$	81	90	90

The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

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: 3