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Description

The following analytic aims to identify the use of tools commonly exploited by cybercriminals. The use of these tools often signals nefarious activities like unauthorized access, network scanning, or data exfiltration, representing a significant threat to an organization's security infrastructure. By examining process activity on the host, particularly those processes corresponding to known attacker tool names, this analytic serves as an early warning system for potential security incidents. However, its precision must be balanced with the understanding that some administrative activities might also trigger alerts, resulting in false positives. This underlines the importance of cyber analysts having a clear understanding of typical endpoint activities and behaviors within their organization, enabling them to accurately interpret and respond to these alerts.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2021-11-04
  • Author: Bhavin Patel, Splunk
  • ID: a51bfe1a-94f0-48cc-b4e4-16a110145893

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1036.005 Match Legitimate Name or Location Defense Evasion
T1036 Masquerading Defense Evasion
T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
T1595 Active Scanning Reconnaissance
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
  • Reconnaissance
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(Processes.process) as process values(Processes.parent_process) as parent_process from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.dest!=unknown Processes.user!=unknown by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.process_name Processes.process 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| lookup attacker_tools attacker_tool_names AS process_name OUTPUT description 
| search description !=false
| `attacker_tools_on_endpoint_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

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

Lookups

The SPL above uses the following Lookups:

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • Processes.dest
  • Processes.user
  • Processes.process_name
  • Processes.parent_process

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

Some administrator activity can be potentially triggered, please add those users to the filter macro.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
64.0 80 80 An attacker tool $process_name$,listed in attacker_tools.csv is executed on host $dest$ by User $user$. This process $process_name$ is known to do- $description$

: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