splunk-security_content/docs/_posts/2021-11-29-possible_lateral_movement_powershell_spawn.md

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title	excerpt	categories	last_modified_at	toc	toc_label	tags
Possible Lateral Movement PowerShell Spawn	Remote Services, Distributed Component Object Model, Windows Remote Management, Windows Management Instrumentation, Scheduled Task, Windows Service, PowerShell	Endpoint	2021-11-29	true		Remote Services Lateral Movement Distributed Component Object Model Lateral Movement Windows Remote Management Lateral Movement Windows Management Instrumentation Execution Scheduled Task Execution Persistence Privilege Escalation Windows Service Persistence Privilege Escalation PowerShell Execution Splunk Enterprise Splunk Enterprise Security Splunk Cloud Endpoint

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Description

The following analytic assists with identifying a PowerShell process spawned as a child or grand child process of commonly abused processes during lateral movement techniques including services.exe, wmiprsve.exe, svchost.exe, wsmprovhost.exe and mmc.exe. Legitimate Windows features such as the Service Control Manager, Windows Management Instrumentation, Task Scheduler, Windows Remote Management and the DCOM protocol can be abused to start a process on a remote endpoint. Looking for PowerShell spawned out of this processes may reveal a lateral movement attack. Red Teams and adversaries alike may abuse these services during a breach for lateral movement and remote code execution.

• Type: TTP
• Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
• Datamodel: Endpoint
• Last Updated: 2021-11-29
• Author: Mauricio Velazco, Splunk
• ID: cb909b3e-512b-11ec-aa31-3e22fbd008af

ATT&CK

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1021	Remote Services	Lateral Movement

| T1021.003 | Distributed Component Object Model | Lateral Movement |

| T1021.006 | Windows Remote Management | Lateral Movement |

| T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | Execution |

| T1053.005 | Scheduled Task | Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation |

| T1543.003 | Windows Service | Persistence, Privilege Escalation |

| T1059.001 | PowerShell | Execution |

Search

| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where (Processes.parent_process_name=wmiprvse.exe OR Processes.parent_process_name=services.exe OR Processes.parent_process_name=svchost.exe OR Processes.parent_process_name=wsmprovhost.exe OR Processes.parent_process_name=mmc.exe) (Processes.process_name=powershell.exe OR (Processes.process_name=cmd.exe AND Processes.process=*powershell.exe*) OR Processes.process_name=pwsh.exe OR (Processes.process_name=cmd.exe AND Processes.process=*pwsh.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)` 
| `possible_lateral_movement_powershell_spawn_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

• security_content_ctime
• security_content_summariesonly

Note that possible_lateral_movement_powershell_spawn_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

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

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.

Known False Positives

Legitimate applications may spawn PowerShell as a child process of the the identified processes. Filter as needed.

Associated Analytic story

• Active Directory Lateral Movement
• Malicious PowerShell

Kill Chain Phase

• Lateral Movement
• Malicious PowerShell

RBA

Risk Score	Impact	Confidence	Message
45.0	90	50	A PowerShell process was spawned as a child process of typically abused processes on dest

Note that risk score is calculated base on the following formula: (Impact * Confidence)/100

Reference

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/003
• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/006/
• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1047/
• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053.005/
• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1543/003/

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/T1543.003/lateral_movement_powershell/windows-sysmon.log

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