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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Security Solution [8.16] ›Detections and alerts ›Prebuilt rule reference

InstallUtil Process Making Network Connections

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InstallUtil Process Making Network Connections

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Identifies InstallUtil.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity as InstallUtil is often leveraged by adversaries to execute code and evade detection.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

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

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

Tags:

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

Version: 101 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.10.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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/* the benefit of doing this as an eql sequence vs kql is this will
limit to alerting only on the first network connection */ sequence by
process.entity_id [process where event.type == "start" and
process.name : "installutil.exe"] [network where process.name :
"installutil.exe" and network.direction : ("outgoing", "egress")]

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 101 (8.5.0 release)

  • Updated query, changed from:

    /* the benefit of doing this as an eql sequence vs kql is this will
limit to alerting only on the first network connection */ sequence by
process.entity_id [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "installutil.exe"] [network
where process.name : "installutil.exe" and network.direction :
("outgoing", "egress")]
Version 6 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (7.16.0 release)

  • Updated query, changed from:

    /* the benefit of doing this as an eql sequence vs kql is this will
limit to alerting only on the first network connection */ sequence by
process.entity_id [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "installutil.exe"] [network
where process.name : "installutil.exe" and network.direction ==
"outgoing"]
Version 3 (7.12.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (7.11.0 release)
  • Formatting only
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