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Process Termination followed by Deletion

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Process Termination followed by Deletion

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Identifies a process termination event quickly followed by the deletion of its executable file. Malware tools and other non-native files dropped or created on a system by an adversary may leave traces to indicate to what occurred. Removal of these files can occur during an intrusion, or as part of a post-intrusion process to minimize the adversary’s footprint.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-endpoint.events.*

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: 100 (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 by host.id with maxspan=5s [process where event.type ==
"end" and process.code_signature.trusted == false and not
process.executable : ("C:\\Windows\\SoftwareDistribution\\*.exe",
"C:\\Windows\\WinSxS\\*.exe") ] by process.executable [file
where event.type == "deletion" and file.extension : ("exe", "scr",
"com") and not process.executable : ("?:\\Program
Files\\*.exe", "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*.exe",
"?:\\Windows\\System32\\svchost.exe",
"?:\\Windows\\System32\\drvinst.exe") and not file.path :
("?:\\Program Files\\*.exe", "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*.exe") ] by
file.path

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Indicator Removal on Host
- ID: T1070
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1070/

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by host.id with maxspan=5s [process where event.type ==
"end" and process.code_signature.trusted == false and not
process.executable : ("C:\\Windows\\SoftwareDistribution\\*.exe",
"C:\\Windows\\WinSxS\\*.exe") ] by process.executable [file
where event.type == "deletion" and file.extension : ("exe", "scr",
"com") and not process.executable : ("?:\\Program
Files\\*.exe", "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*.exe",
"?:\\Windows\\System32\\svchost.exe",
"?:\\Windows\\System32\\drvinst.exe") and not file.path :
("?:\\Program Files\\*.exe", "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*.exe") ] by
file.path

Version 5 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by host.id with maxspan=5s [process where event.type ==
"end" and process.code_signature.trusted == false and not
process.executable : ("C:\\Windows\\SoftwareDistribution\\*.exe",
"C:\\Windows\\WinSxS\\*.exe") ] by process.executable [file
where event.type == "deletion" and file.extension : ("exe", "scr",
"com")] by file.path

Version 3 (7.16.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

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