Detection rules › Sigma

Change Default File Association Via Assoc

Severity
low
Author
Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community
Source
upstream

Detects file association changes using the builtin "assoc" command. When a file is opened, the default program used to open the file (also called the file association or handler) is checked. File association selections are stored in the Windows Registry and can be edited by users, administrators, or programs that have Registry access or by administrators using the built-in assoc utility. Applications can modify the file association for a given file extension to call an arbitrary program when a file with the given extension is opened.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
PersistenceT1546.001 Event Triggered Execution: Change Default File Association
Privilege EscalationT1546.001 Event Triggered Execution: Change Default File Association

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: all of selection_img

or:
Image|endswith: '\cmd.exe'
OriginalFileName: Cmd.Exe

Stage 2: all of selection_cli

CommandLine|contains: assoc

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

FieldKindValues
CommandLinematch
  • assoc
Imageends_with
  • \cmd.exe corpus 92 (sigma 92)
OriginalFileNameeq
  • Cmd.Exe corpus 32 (sigma 30, splunk 2)