ATT&CK coverage › Technique

Native API T1106

Adversaries may interact with the native OS application programming interface (API) to execute behaviors. Native APIs provide a controlled means of calling low-level OS services within the kernel, such as those involving hardware/devices, memory, and processes. These native APIs are leveraged by the OS during system boot (when other system components are not yet initialized) as well as carrying out tasks and requests during routine operations.

Events covered

4 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation
Sysmon10ProcessAccess
Security-Auditing4688A new process has been created.
PowerShell4104Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal).

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 13 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. Field names are normalized across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (9 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
Image5ends_with 5, match 1, starts_with 1\rundll32.exe, \cmd.exe, \cdb.exe, AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe, \AcroCEF.exe
CommandLine5match 5, ends_with 1\Windows\Temp\tmp.bat, gthread-3.6.dll, sigcmm-2.4.dll, WinPwn , WinPwn.exe
TargetImage4eq 2, ends_with 2, match 1?:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe, \lsass.exe, \Discord.exe, :\Program Files\Cylance\Desktop\CylanceUI.exe, AmazonSSMAgentSetup.exe
CallTrace4match 2, starts_with 2, regex_match 1, ends_with 1dbghelp, dbgcore, ^C:\\Windows\\SYSTEM32\\ntdll\.dll\+[a-z0-9]{4,6}\|C:\\Wi..., C:\Windows\System32\ntdll.dll+, )
GrantedAccess3eq 30x1fffff, 0x1028, 0x1440, 0x1000
ScriptBlockText2match 2WinPwn , WinPwn.exe, WinPwn.ps1, VirtualFree, DuplicateTokenEx
OriginalFileName2eq 2CDB.Exe, MSHTA.EXE
ParentImage2ends_with 2\CompatTelRunner.exe, \rundll32.exe, \pwsh.exe, \regsvr32.exe
Provider_Name1eq 1Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Audit-API-Calls

Top indicator values (142 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
TargetImageeq?:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe2
CallTracematchdbghelp1
CallTracematchdbgcore1
GrantedAccesseq0x10281
GrantedAccesseq0x1fffff13
CallTraceregex_match^C:\\Windows\\SYSTEM32\\ntdll\.dll\+[a-z0-9]{4,6}\|C:\\Windows\\System32\\KER...1
CallTraceends_with)1
CallTracematch|UNKNOWN(12
CallTracestarts_withC:\Windows\System32\ntdll.dll+1
TargetImageends_with\lsass.exe113
GrantedAccesseq0x14401
CommandLinematchgthread-3.6.dll1
Imageends_with\cmd.exe192
CommandLinematch\Windows\Temp\tmp.bat1
Imageends_with\rundll32.exe176
CommandLinematchsigcmm-2.4.dll1
CommandLinematchOffline_Winpwn1
CommandLinematchWinPwn.exe1
CommandLinematchWinPwn 1
CommandLinematchWinPwn.ps11

Common exclusions (17 distinct)

Field/operator/value combinations that rules under this technique routinely exclude (top-level not() clauses). These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
Imageeq?:\Windows\System32\WerFault.exe1
Imageeq?:\Windows\System32\WerFaultSecure.exe1
Imageeq?:\Windows\SysWOW64\WerFault.exe1
CallTracewildcard?:\ProgramData\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\*\sysfer.dll*1
TargetImagewildcard?:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\*\AcroCEF.exe1
Imageeq?:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe1
CallTracewildcard?:\WINDOWS\System32\sysfer.dll*1
CallTracewildcard?:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll*1
Imageeq?:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\_classic_\WowClassic.exe1
TargetImageeq?:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe1
CallTracewildcard?:\Windows\System32\wow64cpu.dll*1
TargetImagewildcard?:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit\mbae-svc.exe1
TargetImagewildcard?:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeWebView\Application\*\msedgewebview2.exe1
TargetImagewildcard?:\Program Files\Cisco\AMP\*\sfc.exe1
CallTracewildcard?:\WINDOWS\System32\wow64win.dll*1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Sigma 10 rules

Elastic 2 rules

Kusto Query Language 1 rule