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Elastic Agent Service Terminated

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Elastic Agent Service Terminated

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Identifies the Elastic endpoint agent has stopped and is no longer running on the host. Adversaries may attempt to disable security monitoring tools in an attempt to evade detection or prevention capabilities during an intrusion. This may also indicate an issue with the agent itself and should be addressed to ensure defensive measures are back in a stable state.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

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
Linux
Windows
macOS
Threat Detection
Defense Evasion

Version: 100 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 8.3.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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process where /* net, sc or wmic stopping or deleting Elastic Agent on
Windows */ (event.type == "start" and process.name : ("net.exe",
"sc.exe", "wmic.exe","powershell.exe","taskkill.exe","PsKill.exe","Pro
cessHacker.exe") and process.args : ("stopservice","uninstall",
"stop", "disabled","Stop-Process","terminate","suspend") and
process.args : ("elasticendpoint", "Elastic Agent","elastic-
agent","elastic-endpoint")) or /* service or systemctl used to stop
Elastic Agent on Linux */ (event.type == "end" and (process.name :
("systemctl", "service") and process.args : "elastic-agent" and
process.args : "stop") or /* Unload Elastic Agent extension on
MacOS */ (process.name : "kextunload" and process.args :
"com.apple.iokit.EndpointSecurity" and event.action : "end"))

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: Impair Defenses
- ID: T1562
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1562/

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where /* net, sc or wmic stopping or deleting Elastic Agent on
Windows */ (event.type == "start" and process.name : ("net.exe",
"sc.exe", "wmic.exe","powershell.exe","taskkill.exe","PsKill.exe","Pro
cessHacker.exe") and process.args : ("stopservice","uninstall",
"stop", "disabled","Stop-Process","terminate","suspend") and
process.args : ("elasticendpoint", "Elastic Agent","elastic-
agent","elastic-endpoint")) or /* service or systemctl used to stop
Elastic Agent on Linux */ (event.type == "end" and (process.name :
("systemctl", "service") and process.args : "elastic-agent" and
process.args : "stop") or /* Unload Elastic Agent extension on
MacOS */ (process.name : "kextunload" and process.args :
"com.apple.iokit.EndpointSecurity" and event.action : "end"))

Version 3 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where /* net, sc or wmic stopping or deleting Elastic Agent on
Windows */ (event.type == "start" and process.name : ("net.exe",
"sc.exe", "wmic.exe","powershell.exe","taskkill.exe","PsKill.exe","Pro
cessHacker.exe") and process.args : ("stopservice","uninstall",
"stop", "disabled","Stop-Process","terminate","suspend") and
process.args : ("elasticendpoint", "Elastic Agent","elastic-
agent","elastic-endpoint")) or /* service or systemctl used to stop
Elastic Agent on Linux */ (event.type == "end" and (process.name :
("systemctl","service") and process.args : ("elastic-agent",
"stop")) or /* Unload Elastic Agent extension on MacOS */
(process.name : "kextunload" and process.args :
"com.apple.iokit.EndpointSecurity" and event.action : "end"))

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