NLTest Domain Trust Discovery
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
Kill Chain Phase
- Exploitation
NIST
- PR.PT
- DE.CM
CIS20
- CIS 8
CVE
Search
1
2
3
4
5
6
| 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:
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.
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
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
source | version: 2