Potential Application Shimming via Sdbinst

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The Application Shim was created to allow for backward compatibility of software as the operating system codebase changes over time. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

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

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

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
  • Persistence

Version: 102 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.6.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.6.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "sdbinst.exe"
and not (process.args : "-m" and process.args : "-bg") and not
process.args : "-mm"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 102 (8.6.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    process where event.type == "start" and process.name : "sdbinst.exe"
Version 101 (8.5.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
    process.name : "sdbinst.exe"
Version 11 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 9 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 8 (7.13.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
    process.name:sdbinst.exe
Version 7 (7.12.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 6 (7.11.2 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 5 (7.11.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (7.10.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.code:1 and process.name:sdbinst.exe
Version 3 (7.9.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 2 (7.7.0 release)
  • Formatting only