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

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Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement via MSHTA

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Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement via MSHTA

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Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to execute commands from a remote host, which are launched via the HTA Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally while attempting to evade detection.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: high

Risk score: 73

Runs every: 5 minutes

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

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

https://codewhitesec.blogspot.com/2018/07/lethalhta.html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Lateral Movement

Version: 101 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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sequence with maxspan=1m [process where event.type == "start" and
process.name : "mshta.exe" and process.args : "-Embedding" ] by
host.id, process.entity_id [network where event.type == "start" and
process.name : "mshta.exe" and network.direction : ("incoming",
"ingress") and network.transport == "tcp" and source.port > 49151
and destination.port > 49151 and source.ip != "127.0.0.1" and
source.ip != "::1" ] by host.id, process.entity_id

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Lateral Movement
- ID: TA0008
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0008/
Technique:
- Name: Remote Services
- ID: T1021
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/
Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: System Binary Proxy Execution
- ID: T1218
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/

Rule version history

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Version 101 (8.5.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence with maxspan=1m [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "mshta.exe" and
process.args : "-Embedding" ] by host.id, process.entity_id
[network where event.type == "start" and process.name : "mshta.exe"
and network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and
network.transport == "tcp" and source.port > 49151 and
destination.port > 49151 and source.ip != "127.0.0.1" and source.ip !=
"::1" ] by host.id, process.entity_id

Version 8 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence with maxspan=1m [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "mshta.exe" and
process.args : "-Embedding" ] by host.id, process.entity_id
[network where event.type == "start" and process.name : "mshta.exe"
and network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and
network.transport == "tcp" and source.port > 49151 and
destination.port > 49151 and source.ip != "127.0.0.1" and source.ip !=
"::1" ] by host.id, process.entity_id

Version 6 (8.2.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 5 (8.0.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence with maxspan=1m [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "mshta.exe" and
process.args : "-Embedding" ] by host.id, process.entity_id
[network where event.type == "start" and process.name : "mshta.exe"
and network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and
network.transport == "tcp" and source.port > 49151 and
destination.port > 49151 and not source.address in ("127.0.0.1",
"::1") ] by host.id, process.entity_id

Version 4 (7.16.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence with maxspan=1m [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "mshta.exe" and
process.args : "-Embedding" ] by host.id, process.entity_id
[network where event.type == "start" and process.name : "mshta.exe"
and network.direction == "incoming" and network.transport ==
"tcp" and source.port > 49151 and destination.port > 49151 and
not source.address in ("127.0.0.1", "::1") ] by host.id,
process.entity_id

Version 2 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

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