Detection: Elevated Group Discovery with PowerView

Description

The following analytic detects the execution of the Get-DomainGroupMember cmdlet from PowerView, identified through PowerShell Script Block Logging (EventCode=4104). This cmdlet is used to enumerate members of elevated domain groups such as Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins. Monitoring this activity is crucial as it indicates potential reconnaissance efforts by adversaries to identify high-privileged users within the domain. If confirmed malicious, this activity could lead to targeted attacks on privileged accounts, facilitating further compromise and lateral movement within the network.

Search

1`powershell` EventCode=4104 (ScriptBlockText = "*Get-DomainGroupMember*") AND ScriptBlockText IN ("*Domain Admins*","*Enterprise Admins*", "*Schema Admins*", "*Account Operators*" , "*Server Operators*", "*Protected Users*",  "*Dns Admins*") 
2| fillnull 
3| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by dest signature signature_id user_id vendor_product EventID Guid Opcode Name Path ProcessID ScriptBlockId ScriptBlockText 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `elevated_group_discovery_with_powerview_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Powershell Script Block Logging 4104	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational'

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

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

Implementation

To successfully implement this analytic, you will need to enable PowerShell Script Block Logging on some or all endpoints. Additional setup here https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/UBA/5.0.4.1/GetDataIn/AddPowerShell#Configure_module_logging_for_PowerShell.

Known False Positives

Administrators or power users may use this PowerView for troubleshooting.

Associated Analytic Story

• Active Directory Discovery

References

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1069/002/

• https://powersploit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Recon/Get-DomainGroupMember/

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-ds/plan/security-best-practices/appendix-b--privileged-accounts-and-groups-in-active-directory

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1069/002/

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: 7