MS Office Macro Security Registry Modifications

Microsoft Office Products offers options for users and developers to control the security settings for running and using Macros. Adversaries may abuse these security settings to modify the default behavior of the Office Application to trust future macros and/or disable security warnings, which could increase their chances of establishing persistence.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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
Defense Evasion

Version: 1

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

edit

registry where event.type == "change" and
    registry.path : (
        "HKU\\S-1-5-21-*\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Office\\*\\Security\\AccessVBOM",
        "HKU\\S-1-5-21-*\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Office\\*\\Security\\VbaWarnings"
        ) and
    registry.data.strings == "0x00000001" and
    process.name : ("cscript.exe", "wscript.exe", "mshta.exe", "mshta.exe", "winword.exe", "excel.exe")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Modify Registry
- ID: T1112
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1112/
Tactic:
- Name: Execution
- ID: TA0002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0002/
Technique:
- Name: User Execution
- ID: T1204
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1204/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Malicious File
- ID: T1204.002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1204/002/

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