High Number of Process and/or Service Terminations

Last updated 7 months ago on 2025-06-17

Created 5 years ago on 2020-12-03

About

This rule identifies a high number (10) of process terminations (stop, delete, or suspend) from the same host within a short time period.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ImpactData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Windows Security Event LogsLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Impact (TA0040)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Service Stop (T1489)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

License

Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type

Threshold Rule

Integration Pack

Prebuilt Security Detection Rules

Index Patterns

endgame-*logs-endpoint.events.process-*logs-system.security*logs-windows.forwarded*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*winlogbeat-*

Related Integrations

endpoint(external, opens in a new tab or window)

windows(external, opens in a new tab or window)

system(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗event.category:process and host.os.type:windows and event.type:start and process.name:(net.exe or sc.exe or taskkill.exe) and
 process.args:(stop or pause or delete or "/PID" or "/IM" or "/T" or "/F" or "/t" or "/f" or "/im" or "/pid") and
 not process.parent.name:(osquerybeat.exe or agentbeat.exe)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect High Number of Process and/or Service Terminations in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).