Detection rules › Sigma

Microsoft IIS Connection Strings Decryption

Severity
high
Author
Tim Rauch, Elastic (idea)
Source
upstream

Detects use of aspnet_regiis to decrypt Microsoft IIS connection strings. An attacker with Microsoft IIS web server access via a webshell or alike can decrypt and dump any hardcoded connection strings, such as the MSSQL service account password using aspnet_regiis command.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Credential AccessT1003 OS Credential Dumping

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: all of selection_name

or:
Image|endswith: '\aspnet_regiis.exe'
OriginalFileName: aspnet_regiis.exe

Stage 2: all of selection_args

CommandLine|contains: ' -pdf'
CommandLine|contains: connectionStrings

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
  • -pdf
  • connectionStrings
Imageends_with
  • \aspnet_regiis.exe
OriginalFileNameeq
  • aspnet_regiis.exe