SLUI Spawning a Process
Description
The following analytic identifies the Microsoft Software Licensing User Interface Tool, slui.exe
, spawning a child process. This behavior is associated with publicly known UAC bypass. slui.exe
is commonly associated with software updates and is most often spawned by svchost.exe
. The slui.exe
process should not have child processes, and any processes spawning from it will be running with elevated privileges. During triage, review the child process and additional parallel processes. Identify any file modifications that may have lead to the bypass.
- Type: TTP
- Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
- Datamodel: Endpoint
- Last Updated: 2021-05-13
- Author: Michael Haag, Splunk
- ID: 879c4330-b3e0-11eb-b1b1-acde48001122
Annotations
ATT&CK
Kill Chain Phase
- Exploitation
NIST
CIS20
CVE
Search
1
2
3
4
5
6
| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.parent_process_name=slui.exe by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process 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)`
| `slui_spawning_a_process_filter`
Macros
The SPL above uses the following Macros:
slui_spawning_a_process_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
- Processes.process_name
- Processes.process
- Processes.process_id
- Processes.parent_process_id
How To Implement
To successfully implement this search you need to be ingesting information on process that include the name of the process responsible for the changes from your endpoints into the Endpoint
datamodel in the Processes
node.
Known False Positives
Certain applications may spawn from slui.exe
that are legitimate. Filtering will be needed to ensure proper monitoring.
Associated Analytic Story
RBA
Risk Score | Impact | Confidence | Message |
---|---|---|---|
63.0 | 70 | 90 | A slui process $parent_process_name$ spawning child process $process_name$ in host $dest$ |
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
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/46998
- https://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/exploit/windows/local/bypassuac_sluihijack/
- https://www.mandiant.com/resources/shining-a-light-on-darkside-ransomware-operations
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