PUA - Sysinternals Tools Execution - Registry

Severity: medium
Author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
Source: upstream

Detects the execution of some potentially unwanted tools such as PsExec, Procdump, etc. (part of the Sysinternals suite) via the creation of the "accepteula" registry key.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Resource Development	`T1588.002` Obtain Capabilities: Tool

Event coverage

Provider	Event ID	Title
Sysmon	13	RegistryEvent (Value Set)

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: `selection`

or:
TargetObject|contains: '\Active Directory Explorer'
TargetObject|contains: '\Handle'
TargetObject|contains: '\LiveKd'
TargetObject|contains: '\ProcDump'
TargetObject|contains: '\Process Explorer'
TargetObject|contains: '\PsExec'
TargetObject|contains: '\PsLoglist'
TargetObject|contains: '\PsPasswd'
TargetObject|contains: '\SDelete'
TargetObject|contains: '\Sysinternals'
TargetObject|endswith: '\EulaAccepted'

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.

Field	Kind	Values
`TargetObject`	ends_with	`\EulaAccepted` corpus 4 (sigma 4)
`TargetObject`	match	`\Active Directory Explorer` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\Handle` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\LiveKd` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\ProcDump` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\Process Explorer` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\PsExec` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\PsLoglist` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\PsPasswd` corpus 3 (sigma 3) `\SDelete` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `\Sysinternals`

Neighbors

Broader alternatives (more inclusive than this rule)

These rules match a superset of what this rule catches. They cover the same events plus more. Use them if you want wider coverage and can absorb more false positives.

PUA - Sysinternal Tool Execution - Registry [sigma] (drops 1 filter this rule applies)