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.process-*
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-windows.*
- endgame-*
- logs-system.security*
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:
- Domain: Endpoint
- OS: Windows
- Use Case: Threat Detection
- Tactic: Defense Evasion
- Tactic: Execution
- Data Source: Elastic Endgame
- Data Source: Elastic Defend
Version: 111
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Setupedit
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 version 8.2.
Hence for this rule to work effectively, users will need to add a custom ingest pipeline to populate
event.ingested to @timestamp.
For more details on adding a custom ingest pipeline refer - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/data-streams-pipeline-tutorial.html
Rule queryedit
process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" 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/