name: Office Spawning Control
id: 053e027c-10c7-11ec-8437-acde48001122
version: 2
date: '2023-01-23'
author: Michael Haag, Splunk
type: TTP
datamodel:
- Endpoint
description: The following detection identifies control.exe spawning from an office
  product. This detection identifies any Windows Office Product spawning `control.exe`.
  In malicious instances, the command-line of `control.exe` will contain a file path
  to a .cpl or .inf, related to CVE-2021-40444. In this instance, we narrow our detection
  down to the Office suite as a parent process. During triage, review all file modifications.
  Capture and analyze any artifacts on disk. review parallel and child processes to
  identify further suspicious behavior
search: '| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time)
  as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.parent_process_name
  IN ("winword.exe","excel.exe","powerpnt.exe","mspub.exe","visio.exe","wordpad.exe","wordview.exe","onenote.exe","onenotem.exe","onenoteviewer.exe","onenoteim.exe")
  Processes.process_name=control.exe by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process
  Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id
  | `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`|
  `office_spawning_control_filter`'
how_to_implement: To successfully implement this search you need to be ingesting information
  on process that include the name of the process responsible for the changes from
  your endpoints into the `Endpoint` datamodel in the `Processes` node. In addition,
  confirm the latest CIM App 4.20 or higher is installed and the latest TA for the
  endpoint product.
known_false_positives: Limited false positives should be present.
references:
- https://strontic.github.io/xcyclopedia/library/control.exe-1F13E714A0FEA8887707DFF49287996F.html
- https://app.any.run/tasks/36c14029-9df8-439c-bba0-45f2643b0c70/
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/011/
- https://www.echotrail.io/insights/search/control.exe/
- https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2021-40444
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1218.002/T1218.002.yaml
- https://www.trustwave.com/en-us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/trojanized-onenote-document-leads-to-formbook-malware/
tags:
  analytic_story:
  - Spearphishing Attachments
  - Microsoft MSHTML Remote Code Execution CVE-2021-40444
  confidence: 100
  context:
  - Source:Endpoint
  - Stage:Defense Evasion
  cve:
  - CVE-2021-40444
  dataset:
  - https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1566.001/macro/windows-sysmon_control.log
  impact: 80
  kill_chain_phases:
  - Exploitation
  message: An instance of $parent_process_name$ spawning $process_name$ was identified
    on endpoint $dest$ clicking a suspicious attachment.
  mitre_attack_id:
  - T1566
  - T1566.001
  observable:
  - name: dest
    type: Hostname
    role:
    - Victim
  - name: parent_process_name
    type: Process
    role:
    - Parent Process
  - name: process_name
    type: Process
    role:
    - Child Process
  product:
  - Splunk Enterprise
  - Splunk Enterprise Security
  - Splunk Cloud
  required_fields:
  - 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
  risk_score: 80
  security_domain: endpoint
  supported_tas:
  - Splunk_TA_microsoft_sysmon
  asset_type: Endpoint