Detection: Impacket Lateral Movement WMIExec Commandline Parameters

Description

The following analytic detects the use of Impacket's wmiexec.py tool for lateral movement by identifying specific command-line parameters. It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on processes spawned by wmiprvse.exe with command-line patterns indicative of Impacket usage. This activity is significant as Impacket tools are commonly used by adversaries for remote code execution and lateral movement within a network. If confirmed malicious, this could allow attackers to execute arbitrary commands on remote systems, potentially leading to further compromise and data exfiltration.

Search

1
2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.parent_process_name=wmiprvse.exe by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process_name Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
3| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
4| where match(process, "(?i)cmd\.exe\s+\/Q\s+\/c") AND match(process, "\\\\127\.0\.0\.1\\.*") AND match(process, "__\\d{1,10}\\.\\d{1,10}") 
5| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
6| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
7| `impacket_lateral_movement_wmiexec_commandline_parameters_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

Although uncommon, Administrators may leverage Impackets tools to start a process on remote systems for system administration or automation use cases.

Associated Analytic Story

• Active Directory Lateral Movement

• CISA AA22-277A

• Compromised Windows Host

• Data Destruction

• Gozi Malware

• Graceful Wipe Out Attack

• Industroyer2

• Prestige Ransomware

• Volt Typhoon

• WhisperGate

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

References

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/002/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/003/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1047/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/005/

• https://github.com/SecureAuthCorp/impacket

• https://vk9-sec.com/impacket-remote-code-execution-rce-on-windows-from-linux/

• https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/01/15/destructive-malware-targeting-ukrainian-organizations/

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/05/24/volt-typhoon-targets-us-critical-infrastructure-with-living-off-the-land-techniques/

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: 4