Detection: Impacket Lateral Movement Commandline Parameters

Description

The following analytic identifies the use of suspicious command-line parameters associated with Impacket tools, such as wmiexec.py, smbexec.py, dcomexec.py, and atexec.py, which are used for lateral movement and remote code execution. It detects these activities by analyzing process execution logs from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on specific command-line patterns. This activity is significant because Impacket tools are commonly used by adversaries and Red Teams to move laterally within a network. If confirmed malicious, this could allow attackers to execute commands remotely, potentially leading to further compromise and data exfiltration.

Search

1
2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.process_name=cmd.exe (Processes.process = "*/Q /c * \\\\127.0.0.1\\*$*" AND Processes.process IN ("*2>&1*","*2>&1*")) by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process_name Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
3| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `impacket_lateral_movement_commandline_parameters_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	N/A	'crowdstrike:events:sensor'	'crowdstrike'
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'
Windows Event Log Security 4688	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Security'

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Implementation

The detection is based on data that originates from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents. These agents are designed to provide security-related telemetry from the endpoints where the agent is installed. To implement this search, you must ingest logs that contain the process GUID, process name, and parent process. Additionally, you must ingest complete command-line executions. These logs must be processed using the appropriate Splunk Technology Add-ons that are specific to the EDR product. The logs must also be mapped to the Processes node of the Endpoint data model. Use the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to normalize the field names and speed up the data modeling process.

Known False Positives

Although uncommon, Administrators may leverage Impackets tools to start a process on remote systems for system administration or automation use cases.

Associated Analytic Story

• Active Directory Lateral Movement

• CISA AA22-277A

• Data Destruction

• Gozi Malware

• Graceful Wipe Out Attack

• Industroyer2

• Prestige Ransomware

• Volt Typhoon

• WhisperGate

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

References

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/002/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/003/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1047/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/005/

• https://github.com/SecureAuthCorp/impacket

• https://vk9-sec.com/impacket-remote-code-execution-rce-on-windows-from-linux/

• https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/01/15/destructive-malware-targeting-ukrainian-organizations/

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/05/24/volt-typhoon-targets-us-critical-infrastructure-with-living-off-the-land-techniques/

Detection Testing

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