Detection: Detect Webshell Exploit Behavior

Description

The following analytic identifies the execution of suspicious processes typically associated with webshell activity on web servers. It detects when processes like cmd.exe, powershell.exe, or bash.exe are spawned by web server processes such as w3wp.exe or nginx.exe. This behavior is significant as it may indicate an adversary exploiting a web application vulnerability to install a webshell, providing persistent access and command execution capabilities. If confirmed malicious, this activity could allow attackers to maintain control over the compromised server, execute arbitrary commands, and potentially escalate privileges or exfiltrate sensitive data.

Search

1
2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count max(_time) as lastTime, min(_time) as firstTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where (Processes.process_name IN ("arp.exe","at.exe","bash.exe","bitsadmin.exe","certutil.exe","cmd.exe","cscript.exe", "dsget.exe","dsquery.exe","find.exe","findstr.exe","fsutil.exe","hostname.exe","ipconfig.exe","ksh.exe","nbstat.exe", "net.exe","net1.exe","netdom.exe","netsh.exe","netstat.exe","nltest.exe","nslookup.exe","ntdsutil.exe","pathping.exe", "ping.exe","powershell.exe","pwsh.exe","qprocess.exe","query.exe","qwinsta.exe","reg.exe","rundll32.exe","sc.exe", "scrcons.exe","schtasks.exe","sh.exe","systeminfo.exe","tasklist.exe","tracert.exe","ver.exe","vssadmin.exe", "wevtutil.exe","whoami.exe","wmic.exe","wscript.exe","wusa.exe","zsh.exe") AND Processes.parent_process_name IN ("w3wp.exe", "http*.exe", "nginx*.exe", "php*.exe", "php-cgi*.exe","tomcat*.exe")) by Processes.dest,Processes.user,Processes.parent_process,Processes.parent_process_name,Processes.process,Processes.process_name 
3| `drop_dm_object_name("Processes")` 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `detect_webshell_exploit_behavior_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

Legitimate OS functions called by vendor applications, baseline the environment and filter before enabling. Recommend throttle by dest/process_name

Associated Analytic Story

• BlackByte Ransomware

• CISA AA22-257A

• CISA AA22-264A

• Citrix ShareFile RCE CVE-2023-24489

• Compromised Windows Host

• Flax Typhoon

• HAFNIUM Group

• ProxyNotShell

• ProxyShell

• SysAid On-Prem Software CVE-2023-47246 Vulnerability

• WS FTP Server Critical Vulnerabilities

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

References

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1505/003/

• https://github.com/nsacyber/Mitigating-Web-Shells

• https://www.hackingarticles.in/multiple-ways-to-exploit-tomcat-manager/

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: 5