SeDebugPrivilege Enabled by a Suspicious Processedit

Identifies the creation of a process running as SYSTEM and impersonating a Windows core binary privileges. Adversaries may create a new process with a different token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • 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
  • Privilege Escalation

Version: 2

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guideedit


Rule queryedit

any where event.provider: "Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing" and
 event.action : "Token Right Adjusted Events" and

 winlog.event_data.EnabledPrivilegeList : "SeDebugPrivilege" and

 /* exclude processes with System Integrity  */
 not winlog.event_data.SubjectUserSid : ("S-1-5-18", "S-1-5-19", "S-1-5-20") and

 not winlog.event_data.ProcessName :
         ("?:\\Windows\\System32\\msiexec.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\msiexec.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\lsass.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\WinSxS\\*",
          "?:\\Program Files\\*",
          "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\MRT.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\cleanmgr.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\taskhostw.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\mmc.exe",
          "?:\\Users\\*\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\*-*\\DismHost.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\auditpol.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\System32\\wbem\\WmiPrvSe.exe",
          "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\wbem\\WmiPrvSe.exe")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM