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Potential Application Shimming via Sdbinst

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Potential Application Shimming via Sdbinst

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The Application Shim was created to allow for backward compatibility of software as the operating system codebase changes over time. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

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
Persistence

Version: 102 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.6.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.6.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "sdbinst.exe"
and not (process.args : "-m" and process.args : "-bg") and not
process.args : "-mm"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Event Triggered Execution
- ID: T1546
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/
Tactic:
- Name: Privilege Escalation
- ID: TA0004
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0004/
Technique:
- Name: Event Triggered Execution
- ID: T1546
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/

Rule version history

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Version 102 (8.6.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "sdbinst.exe"

Version 101 (8.5.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.name : "sdbinst.exe"

Version 11 (8.4.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 9 (8.2.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 8 (7.13.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
process.name:sdbinst.exe

Version 7 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 6 (7.11.2 release)

Formatting only

Version 5 (7.11.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 4 (7.10.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

event.code:1 and process.name:sdbinst.exe

Version 3 (7.9.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.7.0 release)

Formatting only

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