This documentation contains work-in-progress information for future Elastic Stack and Cloud releases. Use the version selector to view supported release docs. It also contains some Elastic Cloud serverless information. Check out our serverless docs for more details.
Suspicious Microsoft Diagnostics Wizard Execution
editSuspicious Microsoft Diagnostics Wizard Execution
editIdentifies potential abuse of the Microsoft Diagnostics Troubleshooting Wizard (MSDT) to proxy malicious command or binary execution via malicious process arguments.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- logs-endpoint.events.*
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-windows.*
Severity: high
Risk score: 73
Runs every: 5m
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: 101
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Investigation guide
editRule query
editprocess where event.type == "start" and (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" or process.name : "msdt.exe") and ( process.args : ("IT_RebrowseForFile=*", "ms-msdt:/id", "ms-msdt:-id", "*FromBase64*") or (process.args : "-af" and process.args : "/skip" and process.parent.name : ("explorer.exe", "cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "cscript.exe", "wscript.exe", "mshta.exe", "rundll32.exe", "regsvr32.exe") and process.args : ("?:\\WINDOWS\\diagnostics\\index\\PCWDiagnostic.xml", "PCWDiagnostic.xml", "?:\\Users\\Public\\*", "?:\\Windows\\Temp\\*")) or (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" and not process.name : "msdt.exe" and process.name != null) or (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" and not process.executable : ("?:\\Windows\\system32\\msdt.exe", "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\msdt.exe")) )
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
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/