Elastic Security Detection Rules

Windows Registry File Creation in SMB Share

Last updated 6 months ago on 2025-07-02
Created 4 years ago on 2022-02-16

About

Identifies the creation or modification of a medium-size registry hive file on a Server Message Block (SMB) share, which may indicate an exfiltration attempt of a previously dumped Security Account Manager (SAM) registry hive for credential extraction on an attacker-controlled system.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Lateral MovementTactic: Credential AccessData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Credential Access (TA0006)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ OS Credential Dumping (T1003)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

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

↳ Remote Services (T1021)(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-endpoint.events.file-*
Related Integrations

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

Query
text code block:
file where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "creation" and
 /* regf file header */
 file.Ext.header_bytes : "72656766*" and file.size >= 30000 and
 process.pid == 4 and user.id : ("S-1-5-21*", "S-1-12-1-*") and
 not file.path : (
    "?:\\*\\UPM_Profile\\NTUSER.DAT",
    "?:\\*\\UPM_Profile\\NTUSER.DAT.LASTGOODLOAD",
    "?:\\*\\UPM_Profile\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\UsrClass.dat*",
    "?:\\Windows\\Netwrix\\Temp\\????????.???.offreg",
    "?:\\*\\AppData\\Local\\Packages\\Microsoft.*\\Settings\\settings.dat*"
 )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Windows Registry File Creation in SMB Share 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).