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Description

The vssadmin.exe utility is used to interact with the Volume Shadow Copy Service. Wmic is an interface to the Windows Management Instrumentation. This search looks for either of these tools being used to delete shadow copies.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2020-11-09
  • Author: David Dorsey, Splunk
  • ID: b89919ed-ee5f-492c-b139-95dbb162039e

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1490 Inhibit System Recovery Impact
Kill Chain Phase
  • Actions on Objectives
NIST
  • PR.PT
  • DE.CM
  • PR.IP
CIS20
  • CIS 8
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count values(Processes.process) as process values(Processes.parent_process) as parent_process min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where (Processes.process_name=vssadmin.exe OR Processes.process_name=wmic.exe) Processes.process=*delete* Processes.process=*shadow* by Processes.user Processes.process_name Processes.parent_process_name Processes.dest  
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `deleting_shadow_copies_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: deleting_shadow_copies_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_name
  • Processes.parent_process
  • Processes.original_file_name
  • Processes.process_name
  • Processes.process
  • Processes.process_id
  • Processes.parent_process_path
  • Processes.process_path
  • Processes.parent_process_id

How To Implement

You must be ingesting endpoint data that tracks process activity, including parent-child relationships from your endpoints to populate the Endpoint data model in the Processes node. The command-line arguments are mapped to the "process" field in the Endpoint data model.

Known False Positives

vssadmin.exe and wmic.exe are standard applications shipped with modern versions of windows. They may be used by administrators to legitimately delete old backup copies, although this is typically rare.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
81.0 90 90 An instance of $parent_process_name$ spawning $process_name$ was identified on endpoint $dest$ by user $user$ attempting to delete shadow copies.

: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: 4