IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

« Tampering of Shell Command-Line History Masquerading Space After Filename »

› ›

Elastic Agent Service Terminated

edit

Elastic Agent Service Terminated

edit

Identifies the Elastic endpoint agent has stopped and is no longer running on the host. Adversaries may attempt to disable security monitoring tools in an attempt to evade detection or prevention capabilities during an intrusion. This may also indicate an issue with the agent itself and should be addressed to ensure defensive measures are back in a stable state.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-endpoint.events.*

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: None

Tags:

Domain: Endpoint
OS: Linux
OS: Windows
OS: macOS
Use Case: Threat Detection
Tactic: Defense Evasion
Data Source: Elastic Defend

Version: 106

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

process where
/* net, sc or wmic stopping or deleting Elastic Agent on Windows */
(event.type == "start" and
  process.name : ("net.exe", "sc.exe", "wmic.exe","powershell.exe","taskkill.exe","PsKill.exe","ProcessHacker.exe") and
  process.args : ("stopservice","uninstall", "stop", "disabled","Stop-Process","terminate","suspend") and
  process.args : ("elasticendpoint", "Elastic Agent","elastic-agent","elastic-endpoint"))
or
/* service or systemctl used to stop Elastic Agent on Linux */
(event.type == "end" and
  (process.name : ("systemctl", "service") and
    process.args : "elastic-agent" and
    process.args : "stop")
  or
  /* pkill , killall used to stop Elastic Agent on Linux */
  ( event.type == "end" and process.name : ("pkill", "killall") and process.args: "elastic-agent")
  or
  /* Unload Elastic Agent extension on MacOS */
  (process.name : "kextunload" and
    process.args : "com.apple.iokit.EndpointSecurity" and
    event.action : "end"))

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Impair Defenses
- ID: T1562
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Disable or Modify Tools
- ID: T1562.001
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/001/

« Tampering of Shell Command-Line History Masquerading Space After Filename »