Kerberos Traffic from Unusual Process

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Identifies network connections to the standard Kerberos port from an unusual process. On Windows, the only process that normally performs Kerberos traffic from a domain joined host is lsass.exe.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5m

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

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References: None

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Windows
  • Threat Detection
  • Credential Access

Version: 6

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## Triage and analysis

### Investigating Kerberos Traffic from Unusual Process

Kerberos is the default authentication protocol in Active Directory, designed to provide strong authentication for
client/server applications by using secret-key cryptography.

Domain-joined hosts usually perform Kerberos traffic using the `lsass.exe` process. This rule detects the occurrence of
traffic on the Kerberos port (88) by processes other than `lsass.exe` to detect the unusual request and usage of
Kerberos tickets.

#### Possible investigation steps

- Investigate script execution chain (parent process tree).
- Investigate other alerts related to the host and user in the last 48 hours.
- Check if the Destination IP is related to a Domain Controller.
- Review event ID 4769 for suspicious ticket requests.

### False positive analysis

- This rule uses a Kerberos-related port but does not identify the protocol used on that port. HTTP traffic on a
non-standard port or destination IP address unrelated to Domain controllers can create false positives.
- Exceptions can be added for noisy/frequent connections.

### Response and remediation

- Initiate the incident response process based on the outcome of the triage.
- Scope possible compromised credentials based on ticket requests.
- Isolate the involved host to prevent further post-compromise behavior.

## Config

If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define `event.ingested` and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.

Rule query

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network where event.type == "start" and network.direction : ("outgoing", "egress") and
 destination.port == 88 and source.port >= 49152 and
 process.executable != "C:\\Windows\\System32\\lsass.exe" and destination.address !="127.0.0.1" and destination.address !="::1" and
 /* insert false positives here */
 not process.name in ("swi_fc.exe", "fsIPcam.exe", "IPCamera.exe", "MicrosoftEdgeCP.exe", "MicrosoftEdge.exe", "iexplore.exe", "chrome.exe", "msedge.exe", "opera.exe", "firefox.exe")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM