Try in Splunk Security Cloud

Description

This analytic will identify suspicious excessive number of system events of services that was modified from start to disabled. This technique is seen where the adversary attempts to disable security app services, other malware services oer serve as an destructive impact to complete the objective on the compromised system. One good example for this scenario is Olympic destroyer where it disable all active services in the compromised host as part of its destructive impact and defense evasion.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud

  • Last Updated: 2024-01-24
  • Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
  • ID: c3f85976-94a5-11ec-9a58-acde48001122

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1562.001 Disable or Modify Tools Defense Evasion
T1562 Impair Defenses Defense Evasion
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
`wineventlog_system` EventCode=7040 Message = "*service was changed from demand start to disabled." 
| rename ComputerName as src 
| stats count values(Message) as MessageList dc(Message) as MessageCount min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by src EventCode  User Sid 
| where MessageCount >=10 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `windows_excessive_disabled_services_event_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: windows_excessive_disabled_services_event_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
  • src
  • ComputerName
  • EventCode
  • Message
  • User
  • Sid

How To Implement

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the Service name, Service File Name Service Start type, and Service Type from your endpoints.

Known False Positives

Unknown

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
81.0 90 90 Service was disabled in $Computer$

: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: 2