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Microsoft Exchange Worker Spawning Suspicious Processesedit
Identifies suspicious processes being spawned by the Microsoft Exchange Server worker process (w3wp). This activity may indicate exploitation activity or access to an existing web shell backdoor.
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
- Initial Access
Version: 3
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
process where event.type == "start" and
process.parent.name : "w3wp.exe" and process.parent.args : "MSExchange*AppPool" and
(process.name : ("cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "pwsh.exe", "powershell_ise.exe") or
process.pe.original_file_name in ("cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "pwsh.dll", "powershell_ise.exe"))
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Initial Access
- ID: TA0001
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0001/
-
Technique:
- Name: Exploit Public-Facing Application
- ID: T1190
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1190/