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Unusual Parent-Child Relationship

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Unusual Parent-Child Relationship

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Identifies Windows programs run from unexpected parent processes. This could indicate masquerading or other strange activity on a system.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.process-*
  • logs-windows.forwarded*
  • logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*
  • endgame-*
  • logs-system.security*
  • logs-m365_defender.event-*
  • logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*
  • logs-crowdstrike.fdr*

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:

Tags:

  • Domain: Endpoint
  • OS: Windows
  • Use Case: Threat Detection
  • Tactic: Privilege Escalation
  • Resources: Investigation Guide
  • Data Source: Elastic Endgame
  • Data Source: Elastic Defend
  • Data Source: System
  • Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
  • Data Source: Sysmon
  • Data Source: SentinelOne
  • Data Source: Crowdstrike

Version: 314

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Triage and analysis

Investigating Unusual Parent-Child Relationship

Windows internal/system processes have some characteristics that can be used to spot suspicious activities. One of these characteristics is parent-child relationships. These relationships can be used to baseline the typical behavior of the system and then alert on occurrences that don’t comply with the baseline.

This rule uses this information to spot suspicious parent and child processes.

Note: This investigation guide uses the Osquery Markdown Plugin introduced in Elastic Stack version 8.5.0. Older Elastic Stack versions will display unrendered Markdown in this guide.

Possible investigation steps

  • Investigate the process execution chain (parent process tree) for unknown processes. Examine their executable files for prevalence, whether they are located in expected locations, and if they are signed with valid digital signatures.
  • Investigate other alerts associated with the user/host during the past 48 hours.
  • Investigate any abnormal behavior by the subject process such as network connections, registry or file modifications, and any spawned child processes.
  • Examine the host for derived artifacts that indicate suspicious activities:
  • Analyze the process executable using a private sandboxed analysis system.
  • Observe and collect information about the following activities in both the sandbox and the alert subject host:
  • Attempts to contact external domains and addresses.
  • Use the Elastic Defend network events to determine domains and addresses contacted by the subject process by filtering by the process' process.entity_id.
  • Examine the DNS cache for suspicious or anomalous entries.
  • !{osquery{"label":"Osquery - Retrieve DNS Cache","query":"SELECT * FROM dns_cache"}}
  • Use the Elastic Defend registry events to examine registry keys accessed, modified, or created by the related processes in the process tree.
  • Examine the host services for suspicious or anomalous entries.
  • !{osquery{"label":"Osquery - Retrieve All Services","query":"SELECT description, display_name, name, path, pid, service_type, start_type, status, user_account FROM services"}}
  • !{osquery{"label":"Osquery - Retrieve Services Running on User Accounts","query":"SELECT description, display_name, name, path, pid, service_type, start_type, status, user_account FROM services WHERE\nNOT (user_account LIKE %LocalSystem OR user_account LIKE %LocalService OR user_account LIKE %NetworkService OR\nuser_account == null)\n"}}
  • !{osquery{"label":"Osquery - Retrieve Service Unsigned Executables with Virustotal Link","query":"SELECT concat(https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/, sha1) AS VtLink, name, description, start_type, status, pid,\nservices.path FROM services JOIN authenticode ON services.path = authenticode.path OR services.module_path =\nauthenticode.path JOIN hash ON services.path = hash.path WHERE authenticode.result != trusted\n"}}
  • Retrieve the files' SHA-256 hash values using the PowerShell Get-FileHash cmdlet and search for the existence and reputation of the hashes in resources like VirusTotal, Hybrid-Analysis, CISCO Talos, Any.run, etc.
  • Investigate potentially compromised accounts. Analysts can do this by searching for login events (for example, 4624) to the target host after the registry modification.

False positive analysis

  • This activity is unlikely to happen legitimately. Benign true positives (B-TPs) can be added as exceptions if necessary.

Response and remediation

  • Initiate the incident response process based on the outcome of the triage.
  • Isolate the involved host to prevent further post-compromise behavior.
  • If the triage identified malware, search the environment for additional compromised hosts.
  • Implement temporary network rules, procedures, and segmentation to contain the malware.
  • Stop suspicious processes.
  • Immediately block the identified indicators of compromise (IoCs).
  • Inspect the affected systems for additional malware backdoors like reverse shells, reverse proxies, or droppers that attackers could use to reinfect the system.
  • Remove and block malicious artifacts identified during triage.
  • Run a full antimalware scan. This may reveal additional artifacts left in the system, persistence mechanisms, and malware components.
  • Determine the initial vector abused by the attacker and take action to prevent reinfection through the same vector.
  • Using the incident response data, update logging and audit policies to improve the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the mean time to respond (MTTR).

Rule query

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process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
process.parent.name != null and
 (
   /* suspicious parent processes */
   (process.name:"autochk.exe" and not process.parent.name:"smss.exe") or
   (process.name:("fontdrvhost.exe", "dwm.exe") and not process.parent.name:("wininit.exe", "winlogon.exe")) or
   (process.name:("consent.exe", "RuntimeBroker.exe", "TiWorker.exe") and not process.parent.name:"svchost.exe") or
   (process.name:"SearchIndexer.exe" and not process.parent.name:"services.exe") or
   (process.name:"SearchProtocolHost.exe" and not process.parent.name:("SearchIndexer.exe", "dllhost.exe")) or
   (process.name:"dllhost.exe" and not process.parent.name:("services.exe", "svchost.exe")) or
   (process.name:"smss.exe" and not process.parent.name:("System", "smss.exe")) or
   (process.name:"csrss.exe" and not process.parent.name:("smss.exe", "svchost.exe")) or
   (process.name:"wininit.exe" and not process.parent.name:"smss.exe") or
   (process.name:"winlogon.exe" and not process.parent.name:"smss.exe") or
   (process.name:("lsass.exe", "LsaIso.exe") and not process.parent.name:"wininit.exe") or
   (process.name:"LogonUI.exe" and not process.parent.name:("wininit.exe", "winlogon.exe")) or
   (process.name:"services.exe" and not process.parent.name:"wininit.exe") or
   (process.name:"svchost.exe" and not process.parent.name:("MsMpEng.exe", "services.exe", "svchost.exe")) or
   (process.name:"spoolsv.exe" and not process.parent.name:"services.exe") or
   (process.name:"taskhost.exe" and not process.parent.name:("services.exe", "svchost.exe", "ngentask.exe")) or
   (process.name:"taskhostw.exe" and not process.parent.name:("services.exe", "svchost.exe")) or
   (process.name:"userinit.exe" and not process.parent.name:("dwm.exe", "winlogon.exe")) or
   (process.name:("wmiprvse.exe", "wsmprovhost.exe", "winrshost.exe") and not process.parent.name:"svchost.exe") or
   /* suspicious child processes */
   (process.parent.name:("SearchProtocolHost.exe", "taskhost.exe", "csrss.exe") and not process.name:("werfault.exe", "wermgr.exe", "WerFaultSecure.exe", "conhost.exe")) or
   (process.parent.name:"autochk.exe" and not process.name:("chkdsk.exe", "doskey.exe", "WerFault.exe")) or
   (process.parent.name:"smss.exe" and not process.name:("autochk.exe", "smss.exe", "csrss.exe", "wininit.exe", "winlogon.exe", "setupcl.exe", "WerFault.exe")) or
   (process.parent.name:"wermgr.exe" and not process.name:("WerFaultSecure.exe", "wermgr.exe", "WerFault.exe")) or
   (process.parent.name:"conhost.exe" and not process.name:("mscorsvw.exe", "wermgr.exe", "WerFault.exe", "WerFaultSecure.exe"))
  )

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

« UAC Bypass Attempt via Windows Directory Masquerading