Potential Remote Desktop Tunneling Detected

Identifies potential use of an SSH utility to establish RDP over a reverse SSH Tunnel. This can be used by attackers to enable routing of network packets that would otherwise not reach their intended destination.

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://blog.netspi.com/how-to-access-rdp-over-a-reverse-ssh-tunnel/

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Command and Control

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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process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and /* RDP
port and usual SSH tunneling related switches in command line */
process.args : "*:3389" and process.args : ("-L", "-P", "-R", "-pw",
"-ssh")

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Command and Control
- ID: TA0011
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0011/
Technique:
- Name: Protocol Tunneling
- ID: T1572
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1572/

Rule version history

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Version 4 (7.16.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 3 (7.12.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started", "info") and
/* RDP port and usual SSH tunneling related switches in commandline */
wildcard(process.args, "*:3389") and wildcard(process.args,"-L", "-P",
"-R", "-pw", "-ssh")

Version 2 (7.11.2 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started", "info") and
/* RDP port and usual SSH tunneling related switches in commandline */
wildcard(process.args, "*:3389") and wildcard(process.args,"-L", "-P",
"-R", "-pw", "-ssh")

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