Control Panel Process with Unusual Arguments

Identifies unusual instances of Control Panel with suspicious keywords or paths in the process command line value. Adversaries may abuse control.exe to proxy execution of malicious code.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-endpoint.events.*
winlogbeat-*
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://www.joesandbox.com/analysis/476188/1/html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Defense Evasion

Version: 5

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

edit

Rule query

edit

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
 process.executable : ("?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\control.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\control.exe") and
 process.command_line :
          ("*.jpg*",
           "*.png*",
           "*.gif*",
           "*.bmp*",
           "*.jpeg*",
           "*.TIFF*",
           "*.inf*",
           "*.cpl:*/*",
           "*../../..*",
           "*/AppData/Local/*",
           "*:\\Users\\Public\\*",
           "*\\AppData\\Local\\*")

Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Defense Evasion
- ID: TA0005
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0005/
Technique:
- Name: System Binary Proxy Execution
- ID: T1218
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Control Panel
- ID: T1218.002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/002/

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