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Description

The following analytic identifies net.exe updating user account policies for password requirement with non-expiring password. This technique was seen in several adversaries and malware like Azorult to maintain the foothold (persistence), gaining privilege escalation, defense evasion and possible for lateral movement for specific users or created user account on the targeted host. This TTP detections is a good pivot to see further what other events that users executes on the machines.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2022-06-23
  • Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
  • ID: 73a931db-1830-48b3-8296-cd9cfa09c3c8

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1489 Service Stop Impact
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 3
  • CIS 5
  • CIS 16
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Processes.process) as process min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_net` AND Processes.process="* accounts *" AND Processes.process="* /maxpwage:unlimited" by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process Processes.process_name Processes.original_file_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `windows_valid_account_with_never_expires_password_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

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

Supported Add-on (TA)

List of Splunk Add-on’s tested to work with the analytic.

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

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, parent process, and command-line executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA.

Known False Positives

This behavior is not commonly seen in production environment and not advisable, filter as needed.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
100.0 100 100 An instance of $parent_process_name$ spawning $process_name$ was identified on endpoint $dest$ attempting to make non-expiring password on host user accounts.

: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: 1