IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
« Remotely Started Services via RPC Unusual Child Process of dns.exe »
Elastic Docs ›Elastic Security Solution [8.10] ›Downloadable rule update v8.10.15

Suspicious RDP ActiveX Client Loaded

edit

Suspicious RDP ActiveX Client Loaded

edit

Identifies suspicious Image Loading of the Remote Desktop Services ActiveX Client (mstscax), this may indicate the presence of RDP lateral movement capability.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

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: Lateral Movement
  • Data Source: Elastic Endgame
  • Data Source: Elastic Defend
  • Data Source: Sysmon

Version: 109

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Setup

edit

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

edit
any where host.os.type == "windows" and
 (event.category : ("library", "driver") or (event.category == "process" and event.action : "Image loaded*")) and
 (?dll.name : "mstscax.dll" or file.name : "mstscax.dll") and
   /* depending on noise in your env add here extra paths  */
  process.executable : (
    "C:\\Windows\\*",
    "C:\\Users\\Public\\*",
    "C:\\Users\\Default\\*",
    "C:\\Intel\\*",
    "C:\\PerfLogs\\*",
    "C:\\ProgramData\\*",
    "\\Device\\Mup\\*",
    "\\\\*"
  ) and
  /* add here FPs */
  not process.executable : (
    "?:\\Windows\\System32\\mstsc.exe",
    "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\mstsc.exe",
    "?:\\Windows\\System32\\vmconnect.exe",
    "?:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsSandboxClient.exe",
    "?:\\Windows\\System32\\hvsirdpclient.exe"
  )

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

« Remotely Started Services via RPC Unusual Child Process of dns.exe »