InstallUtil Process Making Network Connections

Identifies InstallUtil.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity as InstallUtil is often leveraged by adversaries to execute code and evade detection.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: medium

Risk score: 21

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: 4 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.10.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

edit

/* the benefit of doing this as an eql sequence vs kql is this will
limit to alerting only on the first network connection */ sequence by
process.entity_id [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "installutil.exe"] [network
where process.name : "installutil.exe" and network.direction :
("outgoing", "egress")]

Threat mapping

edit

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Signed Binary Proxy Execution
- ID: T1218
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/

Rule version history

edit

Version 4 (7.16.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

/* the benefit of doing this as an eql sequence vs kql is this will
limit to alerting only on the first network connection */ sequence by
process.entity_id [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name : "installutil.exe"] [network
where process.name : "installutil.exe" and network.direction ==
"outgoing"]

Version 3 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.11.0 release)

Formatting only

« Incoming Execution via WinRM Remote Shell Installation of Custom Shim Databases »