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Description

The following analytic identifies a suspicious registry modification of Windows auto update configuration. This technique was being abused by several adversaries, malware authors and also red-teamers to bypass detection or to be able to compromise the target host with zero day exploit or as an additional defense evasion technique. RedLine Stealer is one of the malware we've seen that uses this technique to evade detection and add more payload on the target host. This detection looks for registry modification that will "Disable Automatic Updates".

  • Type: Anomaly
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2023-04-21
  • Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
  • ID: fbd4f333-17bb-4eab-89cb-860fa2e0600e

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1112 Modify Registry Defense Evasion
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.AE
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Registry where Registry.registry_path="*\\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows\\WindowsUpdate\\AU\\NoAutoUpdate" AND Registry.registry_value_data="0x00000001" by Registry.dest Registry.user Registry.registry_path Registry.registry_value_data Registry.registry_key_name 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Registry)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `windows_modify_registry_no_auto_update_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: windows_modify_registry_no_auto_update_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • Registry.registry_key_name
  • Registry.registry_path
  • Registry.user
  • Registry.dest
  • Registry.registry_value_name
  • Registry.action
  • Registry.registry_value_data

How To Implement

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 that may cause some false positive.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
49.0 70 70 A registry modification in Windows auto update configuration on $dest$

:information_source: The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

Reference

Test Dataset

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 | version: 1