Detection rules › Splunk
Disabling SystemRestore In Registry
The following analytic detects the modification of registry keys to disable System Restore on a machine. It leverages data from the Endpoint.Registry data model, specifically monitoring changes to registry paths associated with System Restore settings. This activity is significant because disabling System Restore can hinder recovery efforts and is a tactic often used by Remote Access Trojans (RATs) to maintain persistence on an infected system. If confirmed malicious, this action could prevent system recovery, allowing the attacker to sustain their foothold and potentially cause further damage or data loss.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Impact | T1490 Inhibit System Recovery |
Event coverage
| Provider | Event ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | 13 | RegistryEvent (Value Set) |
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: tstats
tstats WHERE (Registry.registry_path="*\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\SystemRestore\\DisableConfig" OR Registry.registry_path="*\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\SystemRestore\\DisableSR" OR Registry.registry_path="*\\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\SystemRestore\\DisableConfig" OR Registry.registry_path="*\\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\SystemRestore\\DisableSR") Registry.registry_value_data="0x00000001" 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.
| Field | Kind | Values |
|---|---|---|
Registry.registry_path | eq |
|
Registry.registry_value_data | eq |
|