SolarWinds Process Disabling Services via Registry

Identifies a SolarWinds binary modifying the start type of a service to "disabled". An adversary may abuse this technique to manipulate relevant security services.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

winlogbeat-*
logs-endpoint.events.*
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:

https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/12/evasive-attacker-leverages-solarwinds-supply-chain-compromises-with-sunburst-backdoor.html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Defense Evasion

Version: 5

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## 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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registry where registry.path : "HKLM\\SYSTEM\\*ControlSet*\\Services\\*\\Start" and
  registry.data.strings : ("4", "0x00000004") and
  process.name : (
      "SolarWinds.BusinessLayerHost*.exe",
      "ConfigurationWizard*.exe",
      "NetflowDatabaseMaintenance*.exe",
      "NetFlowService*.exe",
      "SolarWinds.Administration*.exe",
      "SolarWinds.Collector.Service*.exe" ,
      "SolarwindsDiagnostics*.exe")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Impair Defenses
- ID: T1562
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Disable or Modify Tools
- ID: T1562.001
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/001/
Tactic:
- Name: Initial Access
- ID: TA0001
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0001/
Technique:
- Name: Supply Chain Compromise
- ID: T1195
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1195/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Compromise Software Supply Chain
- ID: T1195.002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1195/002/

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