IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Security Solution [7.16] ›Downloadable rule update v7.16.4

Control Panel Process with Unusual Arguments

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Control Panel Process with Unusual Arguments

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Identifies unusual instances of Control Panel with suspicious keywords or paths in the process command line value. Adversaries may abuse control.exe to proxy execution of malicious code.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • logs-endpoint.events.*
  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-windows.*

Severity: high

Risk score: 73

Runs every: 5m

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Windows
  • Threat Detection
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 6

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## Setup

If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define `event.ingested` and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.

Rule query

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process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
 process.executable : ("?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\control.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\control.exe") and
 process.command_line :
          ("*.jpg*",
           "*.png*",
           "*.gif*",
           "*.bmp*",
           "*.jpeg*",
           "*.TIFF*",
           "*.inf*",
           "*.cpl:*/*",
           "*../../..*",
           "*/AppData/Local/*",
           "*:\\Users\\Public\\*",
           "*\\AppData\\Local\\*")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

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