SeDebugPrivilege Enabled by a Suspicious Process

Last updated a month ago on 2025-12-01
Created 3 years ago on 2022-10-20

About

Identifies a process running with a non-SYSTEM account that enables the SeDebugPrivilege privilege. Adversaries may enable this privilege to debug and modify other processes, typically reserved for system-level tasks, to escalate privileges and bypass access controls.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Windows Security Event LogsLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(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
logs-system.security*logs-windows.forwarded*winlogbeat-*
Related Integrations

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

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

Query
text code block:
any where host.os.type == "windows" and event.provider: "Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing" and event.action : "Token Right Adjusted Events" and winlog.event_data.EnabledPrivilegeList : "SeDebugPrivilege" and /* exclude processes with System Integrity */ not winlog.event_data.SubjectUserSid : ("S-1-5-18", "S-1-5-19", "S-1-5-20") and not winlog.event_data.ProcessName : ( "?:\\Program Files (x86)\\*", "?:\\Program Files\\*", "?:\\Users\\*\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\*-*\\DismHost.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\auditpol.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\cleanmgr.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\lsass.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\mmc.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\MRT.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\msiexec.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\sdiagnhost.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\ServerManager.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\taskhostw.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\wbem\\WmiPrvSe.exe", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\WerFault.exe", "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\msiexec.exe", "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\wbem\\WmiPrvSe.exe", "?:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\WerFault.exe", "?:\\Windows\\WinSxS\\*" )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect SeDebugPrivilege Enabled by a Suspicious Process 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).