DNS-over-HTTPS Enabled via Registry

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Identifies when a user enables DNS-over-HTTPS. This can be used to hide internet activity or the process of exfiltrating data. With this enabled, an organization will lose visibility into data such as query type, response, and originating IP, which are used to determine bad actors.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*
  • logs-windows.*

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
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 5 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0

Rule authors: Austin Songer

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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registry where event.type in ("creation", "change") and
(registry.path :
"*\\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Edge\\BuiltInDnsClientEnabled" and
registry.data.strings : "1") or (registry.path :
"*\\SOFTWARE\\Google\\Chrome\\DnsOverHttpsMode" and
registry.data.strings : "secure") or (registry.path :
"*\\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Mozilla\\Firefox\\DNSOverHTTPS" and
registry.data.strings : "1")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 5 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 3 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (8.0.0 release)
  • Formatting only