Detection rules › Sigma

Active Directory Database Snapshot Via ADExplorer

Severity
medium
Author
Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
Source
upstream

Detects the execution of Sysinternals ADExplorer with the "-snapshot" flag in order to save a local copy of the active directory database. This can be used by attackers to extract data for Bloodhound, usernames for password spraying or use the meta data for social engineering. The snapshot doesn't contain password hashes but there have been cases, where administrators put passwords in the comment field.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
DiscoveryT1069.002 Permission Groups Discovery: Domain Groups, T1087.002 Account Discovery: Domain Account, T1482 Domain Trust Discovery

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: all of selection_img

or:
Description: 'Active Directory Editor'
Image|endswith: '\ADExp.exe'
Image|endswith: '\ADExplorer.exe'
Image|endswith: '\ADExplorer64.exe'
Image|endswith: '\ADExplorer64a.exe'
OriginalFileName: AdExp
Product: 'Sysinternals ADExplorer'

Stage 2: all of selection_cli

CommandLine|contains: snapshot

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
  • snapshot corpus 3 (sigma 3)
Descriptioneq
  • Active Directory Editor corpus 2 (sigma 2)
Imageends_with
  • \ADExp.exe corpus 3 (sigma 3)
  • \ADExplorer.exe corpus 6 (sigma 6)
  • \ADExplorer64.exe corpus 6 (sigma 6)
  • \ADExplorer64a.exe corpus 4 (sigma 4)
OriginalFileNameeq
  • AdExp corpus 2 (sigma 2)
Producteq
  • Sysinternals ADExplorer corpus 2 (sigma 2)