Try in Splunk Security Cloud

Description

The following analytic identifies Windows commandline to reboot a windows host machine. This technique was seen in several APT, RAT like dcrat and other commodity malware to shutdown the machine to add more impact, interrupt access, aid destruction of the system like wiping disk or inhibit system recovery. This TTP is a good pivot to check why application trigger this commandline which is not so common way to reboot a machine. Compare to shutdown and logoff shutdown.exe feature, reboot seen in some automation script like ansible to reboot the machine.

  • Type: Anomaly
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
  • Datamodel: Endpoint
  • Last Updated: 2022-07-27
  • Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
  • ID: 97fc2b60-c8eb-4711-93f7-d26fade3686f

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1529 System Shutdown/Reboot Impact
Kill Chain Phase
  • Actions On Objectives
NIST
  • DE.AE
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE 


1
2
3
4
5
6



| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Processes.process) as process min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where (Processes.process_name = shutdown.exe OR Processes.original_file_name = shutdown.exe) Processes.process="*shutdown*" Processes.process="* /r*" Processes.process="* /t*" by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process Processes.process_name Processes.original_file_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `windows_system_reboot_commandline_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: windows_system_reboot_commandline_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
  • Processes.dest
  • Processes.user
  • Processes.parent_process_name
  • Processes.parent_process
  • Processes.original_file_name
  • Processes.process_name
  • Processes.process
  • Processes.process_id
  • Processes.parent_process_path
  • Processes.process_path
  • Processes.parent_process_id

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

Administrator may execute this commandline to trigger shutdown or restart the host machine.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
30.0 60 50 Process $process_name$ that executed reboot via commandline 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