Unusual Service Host Child Process - Childless Service

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 5 years ago on 2020-10-13

About

Identifies unusual child processes of Service Host (svchost.exe) that traditionally do not spawn any child processes. This may indicate a code injection or an equivalent form of exploitation.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(opens in a new tab or window)

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

False Positive Examples
Changes to Windows services or a rarely executed child process.
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-*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
process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
  process.parent.name : "svchost.exe" and

  /* based on svchost service arguments -s svcname where the service is known to be childless */
  process.parent.args : (
    "WdiSystemHost", "LicenseManager", "StorSvc", "CDPSvc", "cdbhsvc", "BthAvctpSvc", "SstpSvc", "WdiServiceHost",
    "imgsvc", "TrkWks", "WpnService", "IKEEXT", "PolicyAgent", "CryptSvc", "netprofm", "ProfSvc", "StateRepository",
    "camsvc", "LanmanWorkstation", "NlaSvc", "EventLog", "hidserv", "DisplayEnhancementService", "ShellHWDetection",
    "AppHostSvc", "fhsvc", "CscService", "PushToInstall"
  ) and

  /* unknown FPs can be added here */
  not process.name : ("WerFault.exe", "WerFaultSecure.exe", "wermgr.exe") and
  not (process.executable : "?:\\Windows\\System32\\RelPost.exe" and process.parent.args : "WdiSystemHost") and
  not (
    process.name : "rundll32.exe" and
    process.args : "?:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\winethc.dll,ForceProxyDetectionOnNextRun" and
    process.parent.args : "WdiServiceHost"
  ) and
  not (
    process.executable : (
      "?:\\Program Files\\*",
      "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*",
      "?:\\Windows\\System32\\Kodak\\kds_?????\\lib\\lexexe.exe"
    ) and process.parent.args : "imgsvc"
  )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Unusual Service Host Child Process - Childless Service 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).