Detection: Windows Chromium Process with Disabled Extensions

Updated Date: 2026-01-23 ID: ce245717-779b-483b-bc52-fc7a94729973 Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects instances of Chromium-based browser processes on Windows launched with extensions explicitly disabled via command-line arguments. Disabling extensions can be used by automation frameworks, testing tools, or headless browser activity, but may also indicate defense evasion or abuse of browser functionality by malicious scripts or malware. This behavior reduces browser visibility and bypasses user-installed security extensions, making it relevant for detecting non-interactive execution, suspicious automation, or living-off-the-land techniques. Analysts should validate execution context, parent process, and command-line parameters to determine legitimacy.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` min(_time) as firstTime max(_time)
 3as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes 
 4where Processes.process_name IN ("Chrome.exe","Brave.exe", "Opera.exe", "Vivaldi.exe", "msedge.exe")
 5Processes.process = "*--disable-extensions*" 
 6by Processes.action Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process
 7   Processes.parent_process_exec Processes.parent_process_guid Processes.parent_process_id
 8   Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process Processes.process_exec
 9   Processes.process_guid Processes.process_hash Processes.process_id Processes.process_integrity_level
10   Processes.process_name Processes.process_path Processes.user Processes.user_id Processes.vendor_product
11
12| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
13
14| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
15
16| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
17
18| `windows_chromium_process_with_disabled_extensions_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	Other	`'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

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

windows_chromium_process_with_disabled_extensions_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
T1497	Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion	Defense Evasion

Exploitation

DE.AE

CIS 10

Darkhotel

Saint Bear

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

Administrators may enable or disable this feature for framework testing that may cause some false positive.

Associated Analytic Story

Browser Hijacking

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

User $user$ launched a Chromium-based browser on $dest$ with the --disable-extensions flag. Parent process $parent_process_name$. Command line $process$.

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
user	user	20	parent_process, process_name, parent_process_name, process
dest	system	20	parent_process, process_name, parent_process_name, process

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: 1