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« Prebuilt rule reference A scheduled task was updated »
Elastic Docs ›Elastic Security Solution [8.16] ›Detections and alerts ›Prebuilt rule reference

A scheduled task was created

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A scheduled task was created

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Indicates the creation of a scheduled task using Windows event logs. Adversaries can use these to establish persistence, move laterally, and/or escalate privileges.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-system.*

Severity: low

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

References:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Windows
  • Threat Detection
  • Persistence

Version: 2 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.6.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positives

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Legitimate scheduled tasks may be created during installation of new software.

Rule query

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iam where event.action == "scheduled-task-created" and /* excluding
tasks created by the computer account */ not user.name : "*$" and
/* TaskContent is not parsed, exclude by full taskname noisy ones */
not winlog.event_data.TaskName : ("\\OneDrive Standalone
Update Task-S-1-5-21*", "\\OneDrive Standalone Update
Task-S-1-12-1-*", "\\Hewlett-Packard\\HP Web Products
Detection", "\\Hewlett-Packard\\HPDeviceCheck")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 2 (8.6.0 release)

  • Updated query, changed from:

    iam where event.action == "scheduled-task-created" and /* excluding
tasks created by the computer account */ not user.name : "*$" and
/* TaskContent is not parsed, exclude by full taskname noisy ones */
not winlog.event_data.TaskName : ("\\OneDrive Standalone
Update Task-S-1-5-21*", "\\Hewlett-Packard\\HP Web
Products Detection", "\\Hewlett-Packard\\HPDeviceCheck")
« Prebuilt rule reference A scheduled task was updated »