Detection: Windows Cisco Secure Endpoint Related Service Stopped

Updated Date: 2026-05-13 ID: df74f45f-01c8-4fd6-bcb8-f6a9ea58307a Author: Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects the suspicious termination of known services commonly targeted by ransomware before file encryption. It leverages Windows System Event Logs (EventCode 7036) to identify when critical services such as Volume Shadow Copy, backup, and antivirus services are stopped. This activity is significant because ransomware often disables these services to avoid errors and ensure successful file encryption. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could lead to widespread data encryption, rendering files inaccessible and potentially causing significant operational disruption and data loss.

Search

 1`wineventlog_system` `normalized_service_binary_field`
 2  
 3| rename param1 as display_name
 4  
 5| rename param2 as status
 6  
 7| search EventCode=7036 display_name IN ("Cisco AMP Orbital", "*Cisco Secure Endpoint*", "*Cisco Security Connector Monitoring*", "CiscoSAM", "CiscoAMPHeurDriver", "CiscoAMPELAMDriver", "CiscoAMPCEFWDriver", "ImmunetNetworkMonitorDriver", "ImmunetProtectDriver", "ImmunetSelfProtectDriver") status IN ("stopped", "arrêté")
 8  
 9| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
10    BY EventCode display_name normalized_service_name
11       status dest
12  
13| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
14  
15| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
16  
17| `windows_cisco_secure_endpoint_related_service_stopped_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Windows Event Log System 7036	Windows	`'XmlWinEventLog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:System'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
wineventlog_system	`eventtype="wineventlog_system" OR Channel="system" OR source="XmlWinEventLog:System" OR source="WinEventLog:System"`
windows_cisco_secure_endpoint_related_service_stopped_filter	`search *`

windows_cisco_secure_endpoint_related_service_stopped_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
T1490	Inhibit System Recovery	Impact

Actions on Objectives

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 Finding (Notable)	No
Creates Intermediate Finding (Risk Event)	Yes

Anomaly detections generate Intermediate Findings (Risk Events). They do not generate a Finding (Notable) directly.

Implementation

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the 7036 EventCode ScManager in System audit Logs from your endpoints.

Known False Positives

Administrator or troubleshooting activities may trigger this alert. Investigate the process performing this action to determine if its a legitimate activity.

Associated Analytic Story

Intermediate Findings

Message	Entity Field	Entity Type	Risk Score
Cisco Secure Endpoint Service $display_name$ stopped on $dest$	dest	system	20

Threat Objects

Field	Type
display_name	service

References

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:System`	`XmlWinEventLog`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:System`	`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: 7