Detection: Windows Archived Collected Data In TEMP Folder

Updated Date: 2025-10-06 ID: cb56a1ea-e0b1-46d5-913f-e024cba40cbe Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects the creation of archived files in a temporary folder, which may contain collected data. This behavior is often associated with malicious activity, where attackers compress sensitive information before exfiltration. The detection focuses on monitoring specific directories, such as temp folders, for the presence of newly created archive files (e.g., .zip, .rar, .tar). By identifying this pattern, security teams can quickly respond to potential data collection and exfiltration attempts, minimizing the risk of data breaches and improving overall threat detection.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` 
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime 
 4  max(_time) as lastTime 
 5FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Filesystem where 
 6  Filesystem.file_name IN ("*.zip", "*.rar", "*.tar", "*.7z") 
 7  Filesystem.file_path IN ("*\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\*", "*\\Windows\\Temp\\*")
 8by Filesystem.action Filesystem.dest Filesystem.file_access_time 
 9   Filesystem.file_create_time Filesystem.file_hash Filesystem.file_modify_time 
10   Filesystem.file_name Filesystem.file_path Filesystem.file_acl Filesystem.file_size 
11   Filesystem.process_guid Filesystem.process_id Filesystem.user Filesystem.vendor_product 
12
13| `drop_dm_object_name(Filesystem)` 
14
15| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
16
17| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
18
19| `windows_archived_collected_data_in_temp_folder_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Sysmon EventID 11	Windows	`'XmlWinEventLog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
security_content_ctime	`convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)`
windows_archived_collected_data_in_temp_folder_filter	`search *`

windows_archived_collected_data_in_temp_folder_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1560	Archive Collected Data	Collection

Exploitation

DE.AE

CIS 10

Default Configuration

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

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

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. In addition, confirm the latest CIM App 4.20 or higher is installed and the latest TA for the endpoint product.

Known False Positives

Some installers, debugging or support tools may create archive files in the temp folder. Legitimate software may also use temporary folders for archiving purposes. Review and apply filters as needed.

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

An archive file [$file_name$] was created in a temporary folder on [$dest$].

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
dest	system	40	No Threat Objects

References

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational`	`XmlWinEventLog`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational`	`XmlWinEventLog`

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: 6