Suspicious Process With Discord DNS Query
Description
This analytic identifies a process making a DNS query to Discord, a well known instant messaging and digital distribution platform. Discord can be abused by adversaries, as seen in the WhisperGate campaign, to host and download malicious. external files. A process resolving a Discord DNS name could be an indicator of malware trying to download files from Discord for further execution.
- Type: Anomaly
- Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
- Datamodel: Endpoint
- Last Updated: 2022-01-19
- Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
- ID: 4d4332ae-792c-11ec-89c1-acde48001122
Annotations
ATT&CK
Kill Chain Phase
- Exploitation
NIST
- DE.CM
CIS20
- CIS 3
- CIS 5
- CIS 16
CVE
Search
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`sysmon` EventCode=22 QueryName IN ("*discord*") process_path != "*\\AppData\\Local\\Discord\\*" AND process_path != "*\\Program Files*" AND process_name != "discord.exe"
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by Image QueryName QueryStatus process_name QueryResults Computer process_path
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `suspicious_process_with_discord_dns_query_filter`
Macros
The SPL above uses the following Macros:
Note that suspicious_process_with_discord_dns_query_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.
Required field
- _time
- Image
- QueryName
- QueryStatus
- process_name
- QueryResults
- Computer
- process_path
How To Implement
his detection relies on sysmon logs with the Event ID 22, DNS Query.
Known False Positives
Noise and false positive can be seen if the following instant messaging is allowed to use within corporate network. In this case, a filter is needed.
Associated Analytic story
RBA
| Risk Score | Impact | Confidence | Message |
|---|---|---|---|
| 64.0 | 80 | 80 | suspicious process $process_name$ has a dns query in $QueryName$ on $Computer$ |
Reference
- https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/01/15/destructive-malware-targeting-ukrainian-organizations/
- https://medium.com/s2wblog/analysis-of-destructive-malware-whispergate-targeting-ukraine-9d5d158f19f3
- https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/01/15/destructive-malware-targeting-ukrainian-organizations/
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
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