Detection rules › Splunk

Windows Event Log Cleared

Author
Rico Valdez, Michael Haag, Splunk
Source
upstream

The following analytic detects the clearing of Windows event logs by identifying Windows Security Event ID 1102 or System log event 104. This detection leverages Windows event logs to monitor for log clearing activities. Such behavior is significant as it may indicate an attempt to cover tracks after malicious activities. If confirmed malicious, this action could hinder forensic investigations and allow attackers to persist undetected, making it crucial to investigate further and correlate with other alerts and data sources.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Defense EvasionT1070.001 Indicator Removal: Clear Windows Event Logs

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Eventlog104The LogFileCleared.Channel log file was cleared.
Eventlog1102The audit log was cleared.

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

search (EventCode=104 OR EventCode=1102)

Stage 2: stats

stats BY action, change_type, dest, dvc, object_category, signature_id, status, user, vendor_product, object, EventCode

Stage 3: search

search

Stage 4: search

search

Stage 5: 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
EventCodeeq
  • 104
  • 1102

Neighbors

Often fire together

Rules that target events appearing in the same incident timelines. They pattern-match on adjacent steps of the same TTP, so an alert from one is often paired with alerts from these. Useful for triage context and for assembling chained-detection rules.

Share event IDs (chain-detection candidates)

Rules that observe the same Windows event-ID pairs as this one. If you're authoring a multi-stage / sequence rule that spans these events, these are the existing detections that already cover one or both endpoints.