IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

« LSASS Memory Dump Handle Access Launch Agent Creation or Modification and Immediate Loading »

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Lateral Movement via Startup Folder

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Lateral Movement via Startup Folder

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Identifies suspicious file creations in the startup folder of a remote system. An adversary could abuse this to move laterally by dropping a malicious script or executable that will be executed after a reboot or user logon.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-endpoint.events.*
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:

https://www.mdsec.co.uk/2017/06/rdpinception/

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Lateral Movement

Version: 6 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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file where event.type in ("creation", "change") and /* via RDP
TSClient mounted share or SMB */ (process.name : "mstsc.exe" or
process.pid == 4) and file.path :
("?:\\Users\\*\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start
Menu\\Programs\\Startup\\*",
"?:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start
Menu\\Programs\\Startup\\*")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Lateral Movement
- ID: TA0008
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0008/
Technique:
- Name: Remote Services
- ID: T1021
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
- ID: T1547
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/

Rule version history

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Version 6 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

file where event.type in ("creation", "change") and /* via RDP
TSClient mounted share or SMB */ (process.name : "mstsc.exe" or
process.pid == 4) and file.path : "C:\\*\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start
Menu\\Programs\\Startup\\*"

Version 4 (8.2.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 3 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.11.2 release)

Formatting only

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