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

« Connection to Internal Network via Telnet Creation of Hidden Files and Directories via CommandLine »

› › ›

Control Panel Process with Unusual Arguments

edit

Control Panel Process with Unusual Arguments

edit

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: 5 minutes

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: 101 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

edit

Rule query

edit

process where event.type == "start" 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\\*")

Threat mapping

edit

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/

Rule version history

edit

Version 101 (8.5.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

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\\*")

Version 5 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

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*", "*.dat*", "*.cpl:*/*",
"*../../..*", "*/AppData/Local/*",
"*:\\Users\\Public\\*", "*\\AppData\\Local\\*")

Version 3 (8.2.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (8.0.0 release)

Formatting only

« Connection to Internal Network via Telnet Creation of Hidden Files and Directories via CommandLine »