Disabling Lsa Protection via Registry Modification

Last updated 3 months ago on 2025-10-07

Created 7 months ago on 2025-05-27

About

LSA protecton is provided to prevent nonprotected processes from reading memory and injecting code. This feature provides added security for the credentials that LSA stores and manages. Adversaries may modify the RunAsPPL registry and wait or initiate a system restart to enable Lsass credentials access.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SentinelOneData Source: CrowdstrikeLanguage: eql

Severity

high

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Modify Registry (T1112)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Impair Defenses (T1562)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

License

Elastic License v2(external, 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.registry-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*endgame-*logs-m365_defender.event-*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*logs-crowdstrike.fdr*

Related Integrations

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

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

m365_defender(external, opens in a new tab or window)

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

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

Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗registry where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "change" and
  registry.data.strings != null and registry.value : "RunAsPPL" and
  registry.path : "*\\SYSTEM\\*ControlSet*\\Control\\Lsa\\RunAsPPL" and
  not registry.data.strings : ("1", "0x00000001", "2", "0x00000002")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Disabling Lsa Protection via Registry Modification 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).