Potential WSUS Abuse for Lateral Movement

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Identifies a potential Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) abuse to execute psexec to enable for lateral movement. WSUS is limited to executing Microsoft signed binaries, which limits the executables that can be used to tools published by Microsoft.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • logs-endpoint.events.process-*
  • logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*
  • endgame-*
  • logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*
  • logs-m365_defender.event-*
  • logs-system.security-*

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
  • Data Source: SentinelOne
  • Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Version: 2

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and process.parent.name : "wuauclt.exe" and
process.executable : "?:\\Windows\\SoftwareDistribution\\Download\\Install\\*" and
(process.name : "psexec64.exe" or ?process.pe.original_file_name : "psexec.c")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM