Detection: Windows Chromium Process Launched with Logging Disabled

Updated Date: 2026-01-23 ID: d31de944-4e61-468f-9154-e50690f0e99e 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 logging disabled via command-line arguments such as --disable-logging and --disable-logging-redirect. The --disable-logging flag forces browser logging to be disabled, while --disable-logging-redirect disables log redirection and is commonly used for testing or debugging scenarios. Logging is enabled by default in Chromium debug builds, making these flags more likely to appear in debug or development environments. While these options may be legitimately used by automation frameworks, debugging workflows, or isolated testing environments, they are also leveraged by malware and malicious scripts to evade security monitoring. Analysts should review the parent process, full command-line parameters, and execution context to determine whether the behavior is expected or potentially suspicious.

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-logging*" 
 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_launched_with_logging_disabled_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_launched_with_logging_disabled_filter	`search *`

windows_chromium_process_launched_with_logging_disabled_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

No false positives have been identified at this time.

Associated Analytic Story

Browser Hijacking

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

A Chromium-based browser process $process_name$ was launched by $parent_process_name$ on $dest$ by the user $user$ with the command-line $process$.

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
user	user	40	parent_process, parent_process_name, process
dest	system	40	parent_process, 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