Detection rules › Splunk

Disable UAC Remote Restriction

Author
Teoderick Contreras, Splunk, Steven Dick
Source
upstream

The following analytic detects the modification of the registry to disable UAC remote restriction by setting the "LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy" value to "0x00000001". It leverages data from the Endpoint.Registry data model, specifically monitoring changes to the registry path "\CurrentVersion\Policies\System". This activity is significant because disabling UAC remote restriction can allow an attacker to bypass User Account Control (UAC) protections, potentially leading to privilege escalation. If confirmed malicious, this could enable an attacker to execute unauthorized actions with elevated privileges, compromising the security of the affected system.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Privilege EscalationT1548.002 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control
Defense EvasionT1548.002 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon13RegistryEvent (Value Set)

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: tstats

tstats WHERE Registry.registry_path="*\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System*" Registry.registry_value_data="0x00000001" Registry.registry_value_name="LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy" BY Registry.action, Registry.dest, Registry.process_guid, Registry.process_id, Registry.registry_hive, Registry.registry_path, Registry.registry_key_name, Registry.registry_value_data, Registry.registry_value_name, Registry.registry_value_type, Registry.status, Registry.user, Registry.vendor_product

Stage 2: search

search

Stage 3: where

where isnotnull(registry_value_data)

Stage 4: search

search

Stage 5: search

search

Stage 6: search

search `macro`

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
Registry.registry_patheq
  • "*\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System*"
Registry.registry_value_dataeq
  • "0x00000001" corpus 42 (splunk 42)
Registry.registry_value_nameeq
  • "LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy"