Detection: Windows App Layer Protocol Qakbot NamedPipe

Updated Date: 2024-09-30 ID: 63a2c15e-9448-43c5-a4a8-9852266aaada Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects a suspicious process creating or connecting to a potential Qakbot named pipe. It leverages Sysmon EventCodes 17 and 18, focusing on specific processes known to be abused by Qakbot and identifying randomly generated named pipes in GUID form. This activity is significant as Qakbot malware uses named pipes for inter-process communication after code injection, facilitating data theft. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could indicate a Qakbot infection, leading to unauthorized data access and potential exfiltration from the compromised host.

Search

1`sysmon` EventCode IN (17, 18) EventType IN ( "CreatePipe", "ConnectPipe") Image IN ("*\\calc.exe", "*\\notepad.exe", "*\\rdpclip.exe", "*\\explorer.exe", "*\\wermgr.exe", "*\\ping.exe", "*\\OneDriveSetup.exe", "*\\dxdiag.exe", "*\\mobsync.exe", "*\\msra.exe", "*\\xwizard.exe") 
2| regex PipeName="^\\\{[0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{8}" 
3| stats  min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime count by Image EventType ProcessGuid ProcessId PipeName SecurityID EventCode dest UserID 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `windows_app_layer_protocol_qakbot_namedpipe_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Sysmon EventID 17	Windows	`'xmlwineventlog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`
Sysmon EventID 18	Windows	`'xmlwineventlog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`

Macros Used

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

windows_app_layer_protocol_qakbot_namedpipe_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
T1071	Application Layer Protocol	Command And Control

KillChainPhase.COMMAND_AND_CONTROL

NistCategory.DE_AE

Cis18Value.CIS_10

INC Ransom

Magic Hound

Rocke

TeamTNT

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

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, pipename, processguid and named pipe event type from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA.

Known False Positives

unknown

Associated Analytic Story

Qakbot

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message	Risk Score	Impact	Confidence
$Image$ is creating or connecting to a named pipe $PipeName$ in $dest$	49	70	70

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