Windows Parent PID Spoofing with Explorer
Description
The following analytic identifies a suspicious explorer.exe process that has "/root" process commandline. The presence of this parameter is considered a significant indicator as it could indicate attempts at spoofing the parent process by a specific program or malware. By spoofing the parent process, the malicious entity aims to circumvent detection mechanisms and operate undetected within the system. This technique of manipulating the command-line parameter (/root) of explorer.exe is a form of masquerading utilized by certain malware or suspicious processes. The objective is to obscure the true nature of the activity by imitating a legitimate system process. By doing so, it attempts to evade scrutiny and evade detection by security measures.
- Type: TTP
- Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
- Datamodel: Endpoint
- Last Updated: 2023-11-21
- Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
- ID: 17f8f69c-5d00-4c88-9c6f-493bbdef20a1
Annotations
ATT&CK
Kill Chain Phase
- Exploitation
NIST
- DE.CM
CIS20
- CIS 10
CVE
Search
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| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.process="*explorer.exe*" Processes.process="*/root,*" by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process Processes.process_name Processes.original_file_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `windows_parent_pid_spoofing_with_explorer_filter`
Macros
The SPL above uses the following Macros:
windows_parent_pid_spoofing_with_explorer_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.
Required fields
List of fields required to use this analytic.
- _time
- Processes.dest
- Processes.user
- Processes.parent_process_name
- Processes.parent_process
- Processes.original_file_name
- Processes.process_name
- Processes.process
- Processes.process_id
- Processes.parent_process_path
- Processes.process_path
- Processes.parent_process_id
How To Implement
The detection is based on data that originates from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents. These agents are designed to provide security-related telemetry from the endpoints where the agent is installed. To implement this search, you must ingest logs that contain the process GUID, process name, and parent process. Additionally, you must ingest complete command-line executions. These logs must be processed using the appropriate Splunk Technology Add-ons that are specific to the EDR product. The logs must also be mapped to the Processes
node of the Endpoint
data model. Use the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to normalize the field names and speed up the data modeling process.
Known False Positives
unknown
Associated Analytic Story
RBA
Risk Score | Impact | Confidence | Message |
---|---|---|---|
64.0 | 80 | 80 | an explorer.exe process with process commandline $process% in $dest$ |
The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.
Reference
Test Dataset
Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py
tool or the UI.
Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range
source | version: 1