Execution of COM object via Xwizardedit

Windows Component Object Model (COM) is an inter-process communication (IPC) component of the native Windows application programming interface (API) that enables interaction between software objects or executable code. Xwizard can be used to run a COM object created in registry to evade defensive counter measures.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*
  • logs-windows.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

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
  • Execution

Version: 4 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.12.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guideedit


Rule queryedit

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.pe.original_file_name : "xwizard.exe" and ( (process.args
: "RunWizard" and process.args : "{*}") or (process.executable !=
null and not process.executable :
("C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\xwizard.exe",
"C:\\Windows\\System32\\xwizard.exe") ) )

Threat mappingedit

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version historyedit

Version 4 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only