Windows Service Installed via an Unusual Client

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Windows Service Installed via an Unusual Client

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Identifies the creation of a Windows service by an unusual client process. Services may be created with administrator privileges but are executed under SYSTEM privileges, so an adversary may also use a service to escalate privileges from administrator to SYSTEM.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-system.*

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:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Windows
  • Threat Detection
  • Privilege Escalation

Version: 100 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 8.1.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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event.action:"service-installed" and
(winlog.event_data.ClientProcessId:"0" or
winlog.event_data.ParentProcessId:"0")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 3 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only