splunk-security_content/docs/_posts/2021-09-16-detect_psexec_with_accepteula_flag.md

title, excerpt, categories, last_modified_at, toc, toc_label, tags

title	excerpt	categories	last_modified_at	toc	toc_label	tags
Detect PsExec With accepteula Flag	Remote Services, SMB/Windows Admin Shares	Endpoint	2021-09-16	true		Remote Services Lateral Movement SMB/Windows Admin Shares Lateral Movement Splunk Enterprise Splunk Enterprise Security Splunk Cloud Endpoint

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Description

This search looks for events where PsExec.exe is run with the accepteula flag in the command line. PsExec is a built-in Windows utility that enables you to execute processes on other systems. It is fully interactive for console applications. This tool is widely used for launching interactive command prompts on remote systems. Threat actors leverage this extensively for executing code on compromised systems. If an attacker is running PsExec for the first time, they will be prompted to accept the end-user license agreement (EULA), which can be passed as the argument accepteula within the command line.

• Type: TTP
• Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
• Datamodel: Endpoint
• Last Updated: 2021-09-16
• Author: Bhavin Patel, Splunk
• ID: b89919ed-fe5f-492c-b139-151xb162040e

ATT&CK

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1021	Remote Services	Lateral Movement

| T1021.002 | SMB/Windows Admin Shares | Lateral Movement |

Search

| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Processes.process) as process min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_psexec` Processes.process=*accepteula* by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process_name 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)` 
| `detect_psexec_with_accepteula_flag_filter`

Associated Analytic Story

• SamSam Ransomware
• DHS Report TA18-074A
• HAFNIUM Group
• DarkSide Ransomware
• Active Directory Lateral Movement

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.

Required field

• _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

Kill Chain Phase

• Actions on Objectives

Known False Positives

Administrators can leverage PsExec for accessing remote systems and might pass accepteula as an argument if they are running this tool for the first time. However, it is not likely that you'd see multiple occurrences of this event on a machine

RBA

Risk Score	Impact	Confidence	Message
35.0	50	70	An instance of parent_process_name spawning process_name was identified on endpoint dest by user user running the utility for possibly the first time.

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

• https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/attack_techniques/T1021.002/atomic_red_team/windows-sysmon.log

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