Detection rules › Splunk

Windows Multiple Accounts Deleted

Author
Mauricio Velazco, Splunk
Source
upstream

The following analytic detects the deletion of more than five unique Windows accounts within a 10-minute period, using Event Code 4726 from the Windows Security Event Log. It leverages the wineventlog_security dataset, segmenting data into 10-minute intervals to identify suspicious account deletions. This activity is significant as it may indicate an attacker attempting to erase traces of their actions. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized access removal, hindering incident response and forensic investigations.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Initial AccessT1078 Valid Accounts
PersistenceT1078 Valid Accounts, T1098 Account Manipulation
Privilege EscalationT1078 Valid Accounts, T1098 Account Manipulation
Defense EvasionT1078 Valid Accounts

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Security-Auditing4726A user account was deleted.

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

search EventCode=4726 status="success"

Stage 2: bucket

bucket span=10m _time

Stage 3: stats

stats dc(user) AS unique_users,AS user,AS dest BY EventCode, signature, _time, src_user, SubjectDomainName, TargetDomainName, Logon_ID

Stage 4: where

where unique_users>5

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
  • 4726
statuseq
  • success corpus 3 (splunk 3)
unique_usersgt
  • 5 corpus 3 (splunk 3)