Conhost Spawned By Suspicious Parent Process

Detects when the Console Window Host (conhost.exe) process is spawned by a suspicious parent process, which could be indicative of code injection.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

winlogbeat-*
logs-endpoint.events.*
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.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2017/08/monitoring-windows-console-activity-part-one.html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Execution

Version: 4 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.10.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.13.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.name : "conhost.exe" and process.parent.name :
("svchost.exe", "lsass.exe", "services.exe", "smss.exe",
"winlogon.exe", "explorer.exe",
"dllhost.exe", "rundll32.exe", "regsvr32.exe", "userinit.exe",
"wininit.exe", "spoolsv.exe", "wermgr.exe",
"csrss.exe", "ctfmon.exe")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Execution
- ID: TA0002
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0002/
Technique:
- Name: Command and Scripting Interpreter
- ID: T1059
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/

Rule version history

edit

Version 4 (7.13.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
process.name:conhost.exe and process.parent.name:(svchost.exe or
lsass.exe or services.exe or smss.exe or winlogon.exe or explorer.exe
or dllhost.exe or rundll32.exe or regsvr32.exe or userinit.exe or
wininit.exe or spoolsv.exe or wermgr.exe or csrss.exe or ctfmon.exe)

Version 3 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.11.2 release)

Formatting only

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