Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement via MSHTA

Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to execute commands from a remote host, which are launched via the HTA Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally while attempting to evading detection.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: high

Risk score: 73

Runs every: 5m

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

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

https://codewhitesec.blogspot.com/2018/07/lethalhta.html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Lateral Movement

Version: 4

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

edit

sequence with maxspan=1m
  [process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
     process.name : "mshta.exe" and process.args : "-Embedding"
  ] by host.id, process.entity_id
  [network where event.type == "start" and process.name : "mshta.exe" and
     network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and network.transport == "tcp" and
     source.port > 49151 and destination.port > 49151 and not source.address in ("127.0.0.1", "::1")
  ] by host.id, process.entity_id

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Lateral Movement
- ID: TA0008
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0008/
Technique:
- Name: Remote Services
- ID: T1021
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Distributed Component Object Model
- ID: T1021.003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/003/
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/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Mshta
- ID: T1218.005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/005/

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