A newer version is available. For the latest information, see the
current release documentation.
Control Panel Process with Unusual Argumentsedit
Identifies unusual instances of Control Panel with suspicious keywords or paths in the process command line value. Adversaries may abuse control.exe to proxy execution of malicious code.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- logs-endpoint.events.*
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-windows.*
Severity: high
Risk score: 73
Runs every: 5m
Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time
)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
References:
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- Windows
- Threat Detection
- Defense Evasion
Version: 6
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Investigation guideedit
## Setup If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define `event.ingested` and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.
Rule queryedit
process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and process.executable : ("?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\control.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\control.exe") and process.command_line : ("*.jpg*", "*.png*", "*.gif*", "*.bmp*", "*.jpeg*", "*.TIFF*", "*.inf*", "*.cpl:*/*", "*../../..*", "*/AppData/Local/*", "*:\\Users\\Public\\*", "*\\AppData\\Local\\*")
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
-
Technique:
- Name: System Binary Proxy Execution
- ID: T1218
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/
-
Sub-technique:
- Name: Control Panel
- ID: T1218.002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/002/