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Description

This search looks for arguments to certutil.exe indicating the manipulation or extraction of Certificate. This certificate can then be used to sign new authentication tokens specially inside Federated environments such as Windows ADFS.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2022-07-15
  • Author: Rod Soto, Splunk
  • ID: 337a46be-600f-11eb-ae93-0242ac130002

Annotations

ATT&CK
Kill Chain Phase
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.process_name=certutil.exe Processes.process = "*-exportPFX*" by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process Processes.parent_process_name Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `certutil_exe_certificate_extraction_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: certutil_exe_certificate_extraction_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • Processes.dest
  • Processes.user
  • Processes.parent_process_name
  • Processes.parent_process
  • Processes.original_file_name
  • Processes.process_name
  • Processes.process
  • Processes.process_id
  • Processes.parent_process_path
  • Processes.process_path
  • Processes.parent_process_id

How To Implement

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

Unless there are specific use cases, manipulating or exporting certificates using certutil is uncommon. Extraction of certificate has been observed during attacks such as Golden SAML and other campaigns targeting Federated services.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
63.0 90 70 An instance of $parent_process_name$ spawning $process_name$ was identified on endpoint $dest$ by user $user$ attempting export a certificate.

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

Reference

Test Dataset

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 | version: 2