Suspicious Process Creation CallTrace

Last updated a month ago on 2025-03-20
Created 4 years ago on 2021-10-24

About

Identifies when a process is created and immediately accessed from an unknown memory code region and by the same parent process. This may indicate a code injection attempt.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: SysmonLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
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
winlogbeat-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*
Related Integrations

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m
  [process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.code == "1" and
   /* sysmon process creation */
   process.parent.name : ("winword.exe", "excel.exe", "outlook.exe", "powerpnt.exe", "eqnedt32.exe", "fltldr.exe",
                          "mspub.exe", "msaccess.exe","cscript.exe", "wscript.exe", "rundll32.exe", "regsvr32.exe",
                          "mshta.exe", "wmic.exe", "cmstp.exe", "msxsl.exe") and

   /* noisy FP patterns */
   not (process.parent.name : "EXCEL.EXE" and process.executable : "?:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\root\\Office*\\ADDINS\\*.exe") and
   not (process.executable : "?:\\Windows\\splwow64.exe" and process.args in ("8192", "12288") and process.parent.name : ("winword.exe", "excel.exe", "outlook.exe", "powerpnt.exe")) and
   not (process.parent.name : "rundll32.exe" and process.parent.args : ("?:\\WINDOWS\\Installer\\MSI*.tmp,zzzzInvokeManagedCustomActionOutOfProc", "--no-sandbox")) and
   not (process.executable :
            ("?:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\EdgeWebView\\Application\\*\\msedgewebview2.exe",
             "?:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat DC\\Acrobat\\Acrobat.exe",
             "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\DWWIN.EXE") and
        process.parent.name : ("winword.exe", "excel.exe", "outlook.exe", "powerpnt.exe")) and
   not (process.parent.name : "regsvr32.exe" and process.parent.args : ("?:\\Program Files\\*", "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*"))
   ] by process.parent.entity_id, process.entity_id
  [process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.code == "10" and
   /* Sysmon process access event from unknown module */
   winlog.event_data.CallTrace : "*UNKNOWN*"] by process.entity_id, winlog.event_data.TargetProcessGUID

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Process Creation CallTrace 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).