Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement with MMC

Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to run commands from a remote host, which are launched via the MMC20 Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally.

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://enigma0x3.net/2017/01/05/lateral-movement-using-the-mmc20-application-com-object/

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Lateral Movement

Version: 4 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m [network where event.type ==
"start" and process.name : "mmc.exe" and source.port >= 49152 and
destination.port >= 49152 and source.address not in ("127.0.0.1",
"::1") and network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and
network.transport == "tcp" ] by process.entity_id [process where
event.type in ("start", "process_started") and process.parent.name :
"mmc.exe" ] by process.parent.entity_id

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/

Rule version history

edit

Version 4 (7.16.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m [network where event.type ==
"start" and process.name : "mmc.exe" and source.port >= 49152 and
destination.port >= 49152 and source.address not in ("127.0.0.1",
"::1") and network.direction == "incoming" and network.transport ==
"tcp" ] by process.entity_id [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.parent.name : "mmc.exe" ] by
process.parent.entity_id

Version 2 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

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