Suspicious Microsoft Diagnostics Wizard Execution

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 3 years ago on 2022-05-31

About

Identifies potential abuse of the Microsoft Diagnostics Troubleshooting Wizard (MSDT) to proxy malicious command or binary execution via malicious process arguments.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SysmonLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Defense Evasion (TA0005)(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
logs-endpoint.events.process-*winlogbeat-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*endgame-*logs-m365_defender.event-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

m365_defender(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
   (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" or process.name : "msdt.exe") and
   (
    process.args : ("IT_RebrowseForFile=*", "ms-msdt:/id", "ms-msdt:-id", "*FromBase64*") or

    (process.args : "-af" and process.args : "/skip" and
     process.parent.name : ("explorer.exe", "cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "cscript.exe", "wscript.exe", "mshta.exe", "rundll32.exe", "regsvr32.exe") and
     process.args : ("?:\\WINDOWS\\diagnostics\\index\\PCWDiagnostic.xml", "PCWDiagnostic.xml", "?:\\Users\\Public\\*", "?:\\Windows\\Temp\\*")) or

    (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" and not process.name : "msdt.exe" and process.name != null) or

    (process.pe.original_file_name == "msdt.exe" and not process.executable : ("?:\\Windows\\system32\\msdt.exe", "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\msdt.exe"))
    )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Microsoft Diagnostics Wizard Execution 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).