Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement with MMC

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 5 years ago on 2020-11-06

About

Identifies the use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to run commands from a remote host, which are launched via the MMC20 Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to move laterally.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Lateral MovementTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Lateral Movement (TA0008)(opens in a new tab or window)

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-endpoint.events.process-*logs-endpoint.events.network-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m
 [network where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and process.name : "mmc.exe" and source.port >= 49152 and
 destination.port >= 49152 and source.ip != "127.0.0.1" and source.ip != "::1" and
  network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and network.transport == "tcp"
 ] by process.entity_id
 [process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and process.parent.name : "mmc.exe"
 ] by process.parent.entity_id

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Incoming DCOM Lateral Movement with MMC 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).