Microsoft Exchange Server UM Spawning Suspicious Processesedit

Identifies suspicious processes being spawned by the Microsoft Exchange Server Unified Messaging (UM) service. This activity has been observed exploiting CVE-2021-26857.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

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
  • Initial Access

Version: 4

Rule authors:

  • Elastic
  • Austin Songer

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guideedit


Rule queryedit

process where event.type == "start" and
  process.parent.name : ("UMService.exe", "UMWorkerProcess.exe") and
    not process.executable :
              ("?:\\Windows\\System32\\werfault.exe",
               "?:\\Windows\\System32\\wermgr.exe",
               "?:\\Program Files\\Microsoft\\Exchange Server\\V??\\Bin\\UMWorkerProcess.exe",
               "D:\\Exchange 2016\\Bin\\UMWorkerProcess.exe",
               "E:\\ExchangeServer\\Bin\\UMWorkerProcess.exe")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM