Suspicious Process Access via Direct System Call

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Suspicious Process Access via Direct System Call

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Identifies suspicious process access events from an unknown memory region. Endpoint security solutions usually hook userland Windows APIs in order to decide if the code that is being executed is malicious or not. It’s possible to bypass hooked functions by writing malicious functions that call syscalls directly.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-windows.*

Severity: high

Risk score: 73

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
  • Defense Evasion
  • Investigation Guide
  • Sysmon Only

Version: 102 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.6.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## Triage and analysis

### Investigating Suspicious Process Access via Direct System Call

Endpoint security solutions usually hook userland Windows APIs in order to decide if the code that is being executed is
malicious or not. It's possible to bypass hooked functions by writing malicious functions that call syscalls directly.

More context and technical details can be found in this [research blog](https://outflank.nl/blog/2019/06/19/red-team-tactics-combining-direct-system-calls-and-srdi-to-bypass-av-edr/).

This rule identifies suspicious process access events from an unknown memory region. Attackers can use direct system
calls to bypass security solutions that rely on hooks.

> **Note**:
> This investigation guide uses the [Osquery Markdown Plugin]({security-guide}/invest-guide-run-osquery.html) introduced in Elastic stack version 8.5.0. Older Elastic stacks versions will see unrendered markdown in this guide.

#### Possible investigation steps

- Investigate the process execution chain (parent process tree) for unknown processes. Examine their executable files
for prevalence, whether they are located in expected locations, and if they are signed with valid digital signatures.
- Investigate other alerts associated with the user/host during the past 48 hours.
- Investigate any abnormal behavior by the subject process such as network connections, registry or file modifications,
and any spawned child processes.
- Examine the host for derived artifacts that indicates suspicious activities:
  - Analyze the process executable using a private sandboxed analysis system.
  - Observe and collect information about the following activities in both the sandbox and the alert subject host:
    - Attempts to contact external domains and addresses.
      - Use the Elastic Defend network events to determine domains and addresses contacted by the subject process by
      filtering by the process' `process.entity_id`.
      - Examine the DNS cache for suspicious or anomalous entries.
        - !{osquery{"query":"SELECT * FROM dns_cache", "label":"Osquery - Retrieve DNS Cache"}}
    - Use the Elastic Defend registry events to examine registry keys accessed, modified, or created by the related
    processes in the process tree.
    - Examine the host services for suspicious or anomalous entries.
      - !{osquery{"query":"SELECT description, display_name, name, path, pid, service_type, start_type, status, user_account FROM services","label":"Osquery - Retrieve All Services"}}
      - !{osquery{"query":"SELECT description, display_name, name, path, pid, service_type, start_type, status, user_account FROM services WHERE NOT (user_account LIKE "%LocalSystem" OR user_account LIKE "%LocalService" OR user_account LIKE "%NetworkService" OR user_account == null)","label":"Osquery - Retrieve Services Running on User Accounts"}}
      - !{osquery{"query":"SELECT concat('https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/', sha1) AS VtLink, name, description, start_type, status, pid, services.path FROM services JOIN authenticode ON services.path = authenticode.path OR services.module_path = authenticode.path JOIN hash ON services.path = hash.path WHERE authenticode.result != "trusted"","label":"Osquery - Retrieve Service Unsigned Executables with Virustotal Link"}}
  - Retrieve the files' SHA-256 hash values using the PowerShell `Get-FileHash` cmdlet and search for the existence and
  reputation of the hashes in resources like VirusTotal, Hybrid-Analysis, CISCO Talos, Any.run, etc.


### False positive analysis

- This detection may be triggered by certain applications that install root certificates for the purpose of inspecting
SSL traffic. Benign true positives (B-TPs) can be added as exceptions if necessary.

### Response and remediation

- Initiate the incident response process based on the outcome of the triage.
- Isolate the involved host to prevent further post-compromise behavior.
- If the triage identified malware, search the environment for additional compromised hosts.
  - Implement temporary network rules, procedures, and segmentation to contain the malware.
  - Stop suspicious processes.
  - Immediately block the identified indicators of compromise (IoCs).
  - Inspect the affected systems for additional malware backdoors like reverse shells, reverse proxies, or droppers that
  attackers could use to reinfect the system.
- Remove the malicious certificate from the root certificate store.
- Remove and block malicious artifacts identified during triage.
- Run a full antimalware scan. This may reveal additional artifacts left in the system, persistence mechanisms, and
malware components.
- Investigate credential exposure on systems compromised or used by the attacker to ensure all compromised accounts are
identified. Reset passwords for these accounts and other potentially compromised credentials, such as email, business
systems, and web services.
- Determine the initial vector abused by the attacker and take action to prevent reinfection through the same vector.
- Using the incident response data, update logging and audit policies to improve the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the
mean time to respond (MTTR).

Rule query

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process where event.code == "10" and
length(winlog.event_data.CallTrace) > 0 and /* Sysmon CallTrace
starting with unknown memory module instead of ntdll which host
Windows NT Syscalls */ not winlog.event_data.CallTrace :
("?:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\ntdll.dll*",
"?:\\WINDOWS\\SysWOW64\\ntdll.dll*",
"?:\\Windows\\System32\\wow64cpu.dll*",
"?:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\wow64win.dll*",
"?:\\Windows\\System32\\win32u.dll*") and not
winlog.event_data.TargetImage : ("?:\\Program Files
(x86)\\Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit\\mbae-svc.exe",
"?:\\Program Files\\Cisco\\AMP\\*\\sfc.exe", "?:\\Program
Files
(x86)\\Microsoft\\EdgeWebView\\Application\\*\\msedgewebview2.exe",
"?:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat DC\\Acrobat\\*\\AcroCEF.exe") and
not (process.executable : ("?:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat
DC\\Acrobat\\Acrobat.exe", "?:\\Program
Files (x86)\\World of Warcraft\\_classic_\\WowClassic.exe") and
not winlog.event_data.TargetImage :
"?:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\lsass.exe")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 102 (8.6.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 101 (8.5.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 5 (8.4.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    process where event.code == "10" and
    length(winlog.event_data.CallTrace) > 0 and /* Sysmon CallTrace
    starting with unknown memory module instead of ntdll which host
    Windows NT Syscalls */ not winlog.event_data.CallTrace :
    ("?:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\ntdll.dll*",
    "?:\\WINDOWS\\SysWOW64\\ntdll.dll*")
Version 3 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (8.0.0 release)
  • Formatting only