splunk-security_content/docs/_posts/2021-07-05-msmpeng_application_dll_side_loading.md

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title	excerpt	categories	last_modified_at	toc	toc_label	tags
Msmpeng Application DLL Side Loading	DLL Side-Loading, Hijack Execution Flow	Endpoint	2021-07-05	true		DLL Side-Loading Persistence Privilege Escalation Defense Evasion Hijack Execution Flow Persistence Privilege Escalation Defense Evasion Splunk Enterprise Splunk Enterprise Security Splunk Cloud Endpoint

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Description

This search is to detect a suspicious creation of msmpeng.exe or mpsvc.dll in non default windows defender folder. This technique was seen couple days ago with revil ransomware in Kaseya Supply chain. The approach is to drop an old version of msmpeng.exe to load the actual payload name as mspvc.dll which will load the revil ransomware to the compromise machine

• Type: TTP
• Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
• Datamodel: Endpoint
• Last Updated: 2021-07-05
• Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
• ID: 8bb3f280-dd9b-11eb-84d5-acde48001122

ATT&CK

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1574.002	DLL Side-Loading	Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion

| T1574 | Hijack Execution Flow | Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion |

Search

|tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Filesystem.file_path) as file_path count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Filesystem where (Filesystem.file_name = "msmpeng.exe" OR Filesystem.file_name = "mpsvc.dll")  AND Filesystem.file_path != "*\\Program Files\\windows defender\\*" by Filesystem.file_create_time Filesystem.process_id  Filesystem.file_name Filesystem.user 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `msmpeng_application_dll_side_loading_filter`

Associated Analytic Story

• Ransomware
• Revil Ransomware

How To Implement

To successfully implement this search you need to be ingesting information on process that include the name of the Filesystem responsible for the changes from your endpoints into the Endpoint datamodel in the Filesystem node.

Required field

• _time
• Filesystem.file_create_time
• Filesystem.process_id
• Filesystem.file_name
• Filesystem.user
• Filesystem.file_path

Kill Chain Phase

• Exploitation

Known False Positives

quite minimal false positive expected.

Reference

• https://community.sophos.com/b/security-blog/posts/active-ransomware-attack-on-kaseya-customers

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

• https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets//malware/revil/msmpeng_side/windows-sysmon.log

source | version: 1