Detection rules › Sigma

Potential CobaltStrike Service Installations - Registry

Severity
high
Author
Wojciech Lesicki
Source
upstream

Detects known malicious service installs that appear in cases in which a Cobalt Strike beacon elevates privileges or lateral movement.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
ExecutionT1569.002 System Services: Service Execution
PersistenceT1543.003 Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service
Privilege EscalationT1543.003 Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service
Lateral MovementT1021.002 Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin Shares

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon13RegistryEvent (Value Set)

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: all of selection_key

or:
TargetObject|contains: '\Services'
TargetObject|contains: '\System\ControlSet'
TargetObject|contains: '\System\CurrentControlSet\Services'

Stage 2: all of selection_details

or:
Details|contains: '%COMSPEC%'
Details|contains: powershell
Details|contains: start
Details|contains: .exe
Details|contains: 'ADMIN$'

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
Detailsmatch
  • %COMSPEC%
  • .exe corpus 2 (sigma 2)
  • ADMIN$
  • powershell corpus 8 (sigma 8)
  • start
TargetObjectmatch
  • \Services
  • \System\ControlSet
  • \System\CurrentControlSet\Services