Elastic Security Detection Rules

Suspicious ImagePath Service Creation

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 5 years ago on 2020-11-23

About

Identifies the creation of a suspicious ImagePath value. This could be an indication of an adversary attempting to stealthily persist or escalate privileges through abnormal service creation.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Create or Modify System Process (T1543)(opens in a new tab or window)

Defense Evasion (TA0005)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Modify Registry (T1112)(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.registry-*endgame-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*winlogbeat-*logs-m365_defender.event-*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*
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)

sentinel_one_cloud_funnel(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
registry where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "change" and
  registry.value : "ImagePath" and
  registry.path : (
    "HKLM\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet*\\Services\\*\\ImagePath",
    "\\REGISTRY\\MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\ControlSet*\\Services\\*\\ImagePath"
    ) and
  /* add suspicious registry ImagePath values here */
  registry.data.strings : ("%COMSPEC%*", "*\\.\\pipe\\*")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious ImagePath Service Creation 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).