NLTest Domain Trust Discovery

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Description

This search looks for the execution of nltest.exe with command-line arguments utilized to query for Domain Trust information. Two arguments /domain trusts, returns a list of trusted domains, and /all_trusts, returns all trusted domains. Red Teams and adversaries alike use NLTest.exe to enumerate the current domain to assist with further understanding where to pivot next.

• Type: TTP
• Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
• Datamodel: Endpoint
• Last Updated: 2022-04-18
• Author: Michael Haag, Splunk
• ID: c3e05466-5f22-11eb-ae93-0242ac130002

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1482	Domain Trust Discovery	Discovery

Kill Chain Phase

• Exploitation

NIST

• PR.PT
• DE.CM

CIS20

• CIS 8

CVE

Search

| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_nltest` (Processes.process=*/domain_trusts* OR Processes.process=*/all_trusts*) by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process 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)` 
| `nltest_domain_trust_discovery_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

• security_content_summariesonly
• security_content_ctime
• process_nltest

nltest_domain_trust_discovery_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.

• Splunk Add-on for Sysmon

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

• _time
• Processes.process_name
• Processes.process
• Processes.dest
• Processes.user
• Processes.parent_process
• Processes.process_id
• Processes.parent_process_id

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 Processes node.

Known False Positives

Administrators may use nltest for troubleshooting purposes, otherwise, rarely used.

Associated Analytic Story

• Ryuk Ransomware
• Domain Trust Discovery
• IcedID
• Active Directory Discovery
• Qakbot

RBA

Risk Score	Impact	Confidence	Message
15.0	30	50	Domain trust discovery execution on $dest$

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

• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1482/T1482.md
• https://malware.news/t/lets-learn-trickbot-implements-network-collector-module-leveraging-cmd-wmi-ldap/19104
• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1482/
• https://owasp.org/www-pdf-archive/Red_Team_Operating_in_a_Modern_Environment.pdf
• https://ss64.com/nt/nltest.html
• https://redcanary.com/threat-detection-report/techniques/domain-trust-discovery/
• https://thedfirreport.com/2020/10/08/ryuks-return/

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

• https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1482/atomic_red_team/windows-sysmon.log

source | version: 2