Account Discovery Command via SYSTEM Account

Last updated 16 days ago on 2025-05-20
Created 5 years ago on 2020-03-18

About

Identifies when the SYSTEM account uses an account discovery utility. This could be a sign of discovery activity after an adversary has achieved privilege escalation.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonLanguage: eql
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Discovery (TA0007)(opens in a new tab or window)

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(opens in a new tab or window)

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

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
winlogbeat-*logs-endpoint.events.process-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
  (?process.Ext.token.integrity_level_name : "System" or
  ?winlog.event_data.IntegrityLevel : "System") and
  (
    process.name : "whoami.exe" or
    (
      process.name : "net1.exe" and not process.parent.name : "net.exe" and not process.args : ("start", "stop", "/active:*")
    )
  ) and 
process.parent.executable != null and 
not (process.name : "net1.exe" and process.working_directory : "C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection\\Downloads\\") and 
not process.parent.executable : 
                ("C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Monitoring Agent\\Agent\\MonitoringHost.exe", 
                 "C:\\Program Files\\Dell\\SupportAssistAgent\\SRE\\SRE.exe", 
                 "C:\\Program Files\\Obkio Agent\\main.dist\\ObkioAgentSoftware.exe", 
                 "C:\\Windows\\Temp\\WinGet\\defaultState\\PostgreSQL.PostgreSQL*\\postgresql-*-windows-x64.exe", 
                 "C:\\Program Files\\Obkio Agent\\main.dist\\ObkioAgentSoftware.exe", 
                 "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\SolarWinds\\Agent\\Plugins\\JobEngine\\SWJobEngineWorker2.exe") and 
not (process.parent.executable : "C:\\Windows\\Sys?????\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe" and 
     process.parent.args : ("C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Intune Management Extension\\*.ps1", 
                            "Agent\\Modules\\AdHealthConfiguration\\AdHealthConfiguration.psd1'")) and 
not (process.parent.name : "cmd.exe" and process.working_directory : "C:\\Program Files\\Infraon Corp\\SecuraAgent\\")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Account Discovery Command via SYSTEM Account 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(opens in a new tab or window).