Lateral Movement via Startup Folderedit
Identifies suspicious file creations in the startup folder of a remote system. An adversary could abuse this to move laterally by dropping a malicious script or executable that will be executed after a reboot or user logon.
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
- Lateral Movement
Version: 4
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
file where event.type in ("creation", "change") and
/* via RDP TSClient mounted share or SMB */
(process.name : "mstsc.exe" or process.pid == 4) and
file.path : "C:\\*\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Startup\\*"
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Lateral Movement
- ID: TA0008
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0008/
-
Technique:
- Name: Remote Services
- ID: T1021
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/
-
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
-
Technique:
- Name: Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
- ID: T1547
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/
-
Sub-technique:
- Name: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder
- ID: T1547.001
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/001/