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Description

Fodhelper.exe has a known UAC bypass as it attempts to look for specific registry keys upon execution, that do not exist. Therefore, an attacker can write its malicious commands in these registry keys to be executed by fodhelper.exe with the highest privilege. \

  1. HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command\
  2. HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command\DelegateExecute\
  3. HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command\(default)
    Upon triage, fodhelper.exe will have a child process and read access will occur on the registry keys. Isolate the endpoint and review parallel processes for additional behavior.
  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2023-11-07
  • Author: Michael Haag, Splunk
  • ID: 909f8fd8-7ac8-11eb-a1f3-acde48001122

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1112 Modify Registry Defense Evasion
T1548.002 Bypass User Account Control Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion
T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.parent_process_name=fodhelper.exe by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process Processes.parent_process_name 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)` 
| `fodhelper_uac_bypass_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: fodhelper_uac_bypass_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
  • Processes.parent_process_name
  • Processes.dest
  • Processes.user
  • Processes.parent_process
  • Processes.process_name
  • Processes.process
  • Processes.process_id
  • Processes.parent_process_id

How To Implement

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

Limited to no false positives are expected.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
81.0 90 90 Suspcious registy keys added by process fodhelper.exe (process_id- $process_id), with a parent_process of $parent_process_name$ that has been executed on $dest$ by $user$.

: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: 2