Control Panel Process with Unusual Arguments

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.process-*
winlogbeat-*
logs-windows.forwarded*
logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*
endgame-*
logs-system.security*
logs-m365_defender.event-*
logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*

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:

https://www.joesandbox.com/analysis/476188/1/html

Tags:

Domain: Endpoint
OS: Windows
Use Case: Threat Detection
Tactic: Defense Evasion
Tactic: Execution
Data Source: Elastic Endgame
Data Source: Elastic Defend
Data Source: System
Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Data Source: Sysmon
Data Source: SentinelOne

Version: 312

Rule authors:

Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Setup

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Setup

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 version 8.2. Hence for this rule to work effectively, users will need to add a custom ingest pipeline to populate event.ingested to @timestamp. For more details on adding a custom ingest pipeline refer - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/fleet/current/data-streams-pipeline-tutorial.html

Rule query

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process where host.os.type == "windows" and 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\\*")

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/
Sub-technique:
- Name: Control Panel
- ID: T1218.002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/002/

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