Suspicious RDP ActiveX Client Loadededit
Identifies suspicious Image Loading of the Remote Desktop Services ActiveX Client (mstscax), this may indicate the presence of RDP lateral movement capability.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- logs-endpoint.events.*
- winlogbeat-*
- 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
- Lateral Movement
Version: 100 (version history)
Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0
Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0
Rule authors: Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Investigation guideedit
Rule queryedit
any where (event.category == "library" or (event.category == "process"
and event.action : "Image loaded*")) and (dll.name : "mstscax.dll" or
file.name : "mstscax.dll") and /* depending on noise in your env
add here extra paths */ process.executable : (
"C:\\Windows\\*", "C:\\Users\\Public\\*",
"C:\\Users\\Default\\*", "C:\\Intel\\*", "C:\\PerfLogs\\*",
"C:\\ProgramData\\*", "\\Device\\Mup\\*", "\\\\*" ) and
/* add here FPs */ not process.executable :
("C:\\Windows\\System32\\mstsc.exe",
"C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\mstsc.exe")
Threat mappingedit
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/
Rule version historyedit
- Version 100 (8.5.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 6 (8.4.0 release)
-
-
Updated query, changed from:
library where dll.name : "mstscax.dll" and /* depending on noise in your env add here extra paths */ process.executable : ( "C:\\Windows\\*", "C:\\Users\\Public\\*", "C:\\Users\\Default\\*", "C:\\Intel\\*", "C:\\PerfLogs\\*", "C:\\ProgramData\\*", "\\Device\\Mup\\*", "\\\\*" ) and /* add here FPs */ not process.executable : ("C:\\Windows\\System32\\mstsc.exe", "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\mstsc.exe")
-
- Version 4 (8.2.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 3 (7.12.0 release)
-
-
Updated query, changed from:
library where file.name == "mstscax.dll" and /* depending on noise in your env add here extra paths */ wildcard(process.executable, "C:\\Windows\\*", "C:\\Users\\Public\\*", "C:\\Users\\Default\\*", "C:\\Intel\\*", "C:\\PerfLogs\\*", "C:\\ProgramData\\*", "\\Device\\Mup\\*", "\\\\*") and /* add here FPs */ not process.executable in ("C:\\Windows\\System32\\mstsc.exe", "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\mstsc.exe")
-
- Version 2 (7.11.2 release)
-
- Formatting only