Detection: Windows App Layer Protocol Qakbot NamedPipe

Updated Date: 2024-11-13 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 dest dvc pipe_name process_exec process_guid process_id process_name process_path signature signature_id user_id vendor_product Image PipeName 
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

Command and Control

DE.AE

CIS 10

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:

$Image$ is creating or connecting to a named pipe $PipeName$ on $dest$

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
dest	system	49	No Threat Objects

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: 5