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 [8.10] ›Downloadable rule update v8.10.14

Microsoft Exchange Worker Spawning Suspicious Processes

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Microsoft Exchange Worker Spawning Suspicious Processes

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Identifies suspicious processes being spawned by the Microsoft Exchange Server worker process (w3wp). This activity may indicate exploitation activity or access to an existing web shell backdoor.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

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:

  • Domain: Endpoint
  • OS: Windows
  • Use Case: Threat Detection
  • Tactic: Initial Access
  • Tactic: Execution
  • Data Source: Elastic Endgame
  • Data Source: Elastic Defend
  • Data Source: Sysmon

Version: 108

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Setup

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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 version 8.2. Hence for this rule to work effectively, users will need to add a custom ingest pipeline to populate event.ingested to @timestamp. For more details on adding a custom ingest pipeline refer - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/data-streams-pipeline-tutorial.html

Rule query

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process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
  process.parent.name : "w3wp.exe" and process.parent.args : "MSExchange*AppPool" and
  (process.name : ("cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "pwsh.exe", "powershell_ise.exe") or
  ?process.pe.original_file_name in ("cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "pwsh.dll", "powershell_ise.exe"))

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

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