Detection: NLTest Domain Trust Discovery

Description

The following analytic identifies the execution of nltest.exe with command-line arguments /domain_trusts or /all_trusts to query Domain Trust information. It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process execution logs and command-line arguments. This activity is significant as it indicates potential reconnaissance efforts by adversaries to understand domain trust relationships, which can inform their lateral movement strategies. If confirmed malicious, this activity could enable attackers to map out trusted domains, facilitating further compromise and pivoting within the network.

Search

1
2| 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.action Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process Processes.parent_process_exec Processes.parent_process_guid Processes.parent_process_id Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process Processes.process_exec Processes.process_guid Processes.process_hash Processes.process_id Processes.process_integrity_level Processes.process_name Processes.process_path Processes.user Processes.user_id Processes.vendor_product 
3| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `nltest_domain_trust_discovery_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	N/A	'crowdstrike:events:sensor'	'crowdstrike'
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'
Windows Event Log Security 4688	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Security'

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Implementation

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

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

Associated Analytic Story

• Active Directory Discovery

• Cleo File Transfer Software

• Domain Trust Discovery

• IcedID

• Medusa Ransomware

• Qakbot

• Rhysida Ransomware

• Ryuk Ransomware

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Domain trust discovery execution on $dest$

References

• 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/

Detection Testing

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: GitHub | Version: 7