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Description

The following analytic is to identify a modification in the Windows registry to enable remote desktop protocol on a targeted machine. This technique was seen in several adversaries, malware or red teamer to remotely access the compromised or targeted host by enabling this protocol in registry. Even this protocol might be allowed in some production environment, This TTP behavior is a good pivot to check who and why the user want to enable this feature through registry which is un-common.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2022-06-21
  • Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
  • ID: 8fbd2e88-4ea5-40b9-9217-fd0855e08cc0

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol Lateral Movement
T1021 Remote Services Lateral Movement
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 3
  • CIS 5
  • CIS 16
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Registry where Registry.registry_path= "*\\Control\\Terminal Server\\fDenyTSConnections*" Registry.registry_value_data="0x00000000" by Registry.registry_key_name Registry.user Registry.registry_path Registry.registry_value_data Registry.action Registry.dest 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Registry)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `windows_remote_services_rdp_enable_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

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

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • Registry.registry_key_name
  • Registry.registry_path
  • Registry.user
  • Registry.dest
  • Registry.registry_value_name
  • Registry.action

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 Registry node. Also make sure that this registry was included in your config files ex. sysmon config to be monitored.

Known False Positives

administrators may enable or disable this feature that may cause some false positive.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
49.0 70 70 the registry for rdp protocol was modified to enable in $dest$

: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