Potential Application Shimming via Sdbinstedit
The Application Shim was created to allow for backward compatibility of software as the operating system codebase changes over time. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-endpoint.events.*
- logs-windows.*
Severity: low
Risk score: 21
Runs every: 5 minutes
Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- Windows
- Threat Detection
- Persistence
Version: 9 (version history)
Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.6.0
Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.2.0
Rule authors: Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Investigation guideedit
## Config 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.name : "sdbinst.exe"
Threat mappingedit
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
-
Technique:
- Name: Event Triggered Execution
- ID: T1546
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/
-
Tactic:
- Name: Privilege Escalation
- ID: TA0004
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0004/
-
Technique:
- Name: Event Triggered Execution
- ID: T1546
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/
Rule version historyedit
- Version 9 (8.2.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 8 (7.13.0 release)
-
-
Updated query, changed from:
event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and process.name:sdbinst.exe
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- Version 7 (7.12.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 6 (7.11.2 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 5 (7.11.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 4 (7.10.0 release)
-
-
Updated query, changed from:
event.code:1 and process.name:sdbinst.exe
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- Version 3 (7.9.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 2 (7.7.0 release)
-
- Formatting only