Enable Host Network Discovery via Netsh

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Identifies use of the netsh.exe program to enable host discovery via the network. Attackers can use this command-line tool to weaken the host firewall settings.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • winlogbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*
  • logs-windows.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • Windows
  • Threat Detection
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 3 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.14.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.2.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positives

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Host Windows Firewall planned system administration changes.

Investigation guide

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## Config

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 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.

Rule query

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process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "netsh.exe" and
process.args : ("firewall", "advfirewall") and process.args :
"group=Network Discovery" and process.args : "enable=Yes"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 3 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (7.16.0 release)
  • Formatting only