New

The executive guide to generative AI

Read more

UAC Bypass Attempt via Windows Directory Masquerading

edit
IMPORTANT: This documentation is no longer updated. Refer to Elastic's version policy and the latest documentation.

UAC Bypass Attempt via Windows Directory Masquerading

edit

Identifies an attempt to bypass User Account Control (UAC) by masquerading as a Microsoft trusted Windows directory. Attackers may bypass UAC to stealthily execute code with elevated permissions.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*
  • 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
  • Privilege Escalation

Version: 5 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.2.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

edit
## Config

If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define `event.ingested` and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.

Rule query

edit
process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.args : ("C:\\Windows \\system32\\*.exe", "C:\\Windows
\\SysWOW64\\*.exe")

Threat mapping

edit

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

edit
Version 5 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (7.15.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 3 (7.12.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (7.11.2 release)
  • Formatting only
Was this helpful?
Feedback