ID | Technique | Tactic |
---|---|---|
T1068 | Exploitation for Privilege Escalation | Privilege Escalation |
Detection: Spoolsv Suspicious Process Access
Description
The following analytic detects suspicious process access by spoolsv.exe, potentially indicating exploitation of the PrintNightmare vulnerability (CVE-2021-34527). It leverages Sysmon EventCode 10 to identify when spoolsv.exe accesses critical system files or processes like rundll32.exe with elevated privileges. This activity is significant as it may signal an attempt to gain unauthorized privilege escalation on a vulnerable machine. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could achieve elevated privileges, leading to further system compromise, persistent access, or unauthorized control over the affected environment.
Search
1`sysmon` EventCode=10 SourceImage = "*\\spoolsv.exe" CallTrace = "*\\Windows\\system32\\spool\\DRIVERS\\x64\\*" TargetImage IN ("*\\rundll32.exe", "*\\spoolsv.exe") GrantedAccess = 0x1fffff
2| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by dest SourceImage TargetImage GrantedAccess CallTrace EventCode ProcessID
3| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
4| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
5| `spoolsv_suspicious_process_access_filter`
Data Source
Name | Platform | Sourcetype | Source | Supported App |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sysmon EventID 10 | Windows | 'xmlwineventlog' |
'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational' |
N/A |
Macros Used
Name | Value |
---|---|
security_content_ctime | convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$) |
spoolsv_suspicious_process_access_filter | search * |
spoolsv_suspicious_process_access_filter
is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.
Annotations
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 Notable | Yes |
Rule Title | %name% |
Rule Description | %description% |
Notable Event Fields | user, dest |
Creates Risk Event | True |
Implementation
To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with process access event where SourceImage, TargetImage, GrantedAccess and CallTrace executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA. Tune and filter known instances of spoolsv.exe.
Known False Positives
Unknown. Filter as needed.
Associated Analytic Story
Risk Based Analytics (RBA)
Risk Message | Risk Score | Impact | Confidence |
---|---|---|---|
$SourceImage$ was GrantedAccess open access to $TargetImage$ on endpoint $dest$. This behavior is suspicious and related to PrintNightmare. | 72 | 80 | 90 |
References
-
https://github.com/cube0x0/impacket/commit/73b9466c17761384ece11e1028ec6689abad6818
-
https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/ob6y02/critical_vulnerability_printnightmare_exposes
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