splunk-security_content/docs/_posts/2021-05-04-excessive_usage_of_taskkill.md

title, excerpt, categories, last_modified_at, toc, tags

title	excerpt	categories	last_modified_at	toc	tags
Excessive Usage Of Taskkill	Disable or Modify Tools	Endpoint	2021-05-04	true	Anomaly T1562.001 Disable or Modify Tools Defense Evasion Splunk Enterprise Splunk Enterprise Security Splunk Cloud Endpoint Exploitation

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Description

This analytic identifies excessive usage of taskkill.exe application. This application is commonly used by adversaries to evade detections by killing security product processes or even other processes to evade detection.

• Type: Anomaly
• Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
• Datamodel: Endpoint
• Last Updated: 2021-05-04
• Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
• ID: fe5bca48-accb-11eb-a67c-acde48001122

ATT&CK

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1562.001	Disable or Modify Tools	Defense Evasion

Search

| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Processes.process) as process values(Processes.process_id) as process_id count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.process_name = "taskkill.exe"  by Processes.parent_process_name Processes.process_name Processes.dest Processes.user _time span=1m 
| where count >=10 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `excessive_usage_of_taskkill_filter`

Associated Analytic Story

• XMRig

How To Implement

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, parent process, and command-line executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA. Tune and filter known instances where renamed taskkill.exe may be used.

Required field

• _time
• Processes.parent_process_name
• Processes.process_name
• Processes.dest
• Processes.user
• Processes.process
• Processes.process_id

Kill Chain Phase

• Exploitation

Known False Positives

Unknown. Filter as needed.

RBA

Risk Score	Impact	Confidence	Message
28.0	40	70	Excessive usage of taskkill.exe with process id process_id (more than 10 within 1m) has been detected on dest with a parent process of parent_process_name.

Reference

• https://thedfirreport.com/2020/04/20/sqlserver-or-the-miner-in-the-basement/

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/xmrig_miner/windows-sysmon.log

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