Potential Dynamic IEX Reconstruction via Environment Variables

Last updated a month ago on 2025-04-16
Created a month ago on 2025-04-16

About

Identifies PowerShell scripts that reconstruct the IEX (Invoke-Expression) command at runtime using indexed slices of environment variables. This technique leverages character access and join operations to build execution logic dynamically, bypassing static keyword detection and evading defenses such as AMSI.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: PowerShell LogsLanguage: esql
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CKâ„¢

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

Execution (TA0002)(opens in a new tab or window)

License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Related Integrations

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
FROM logs-windows.powershell_operational* metadata _id, _version, _index
| WHERE event.code == "4104"

// Look for scripts with more than 500 chars that contain a related keyword
| EVAL script_len = LENGTH(powershell.file.script_block_text)
| WHERE script_len > 500

// Replace string format expressions with 🔥 to enable counting the occurrence of the patterns we are looking for
// The emoji is used because it's unlikely to appear in scripts and has a consistent character length of 1
| EVAL replaced_with_fire = REPLACE(powershell.file.script_block_text, """(?i)(\$(?:\w+|\w+\:\w+)\[\d++\]\+\$(?:\w+|\w+\:\w+)\[\d++\]\+['"]x['"]|\$(?:\w+\:\w+)\[\d++,\d++,\d++\]|\.name\[\d++,\d++,\d++\])""", "🔥")

// Count how many patterns were detected by calculating the number of 🔥 characters inserted
| EVAL count = LENGTH(replaced_with_fire) - LENGTH(REPLACE(replaced_with_fire, "🔥", ""))

// Keep the fields relevant to the query, although this is not needed as the alert is populated using _id
| KEEP count, replaced_with_fire, powershell.file.script_block_text, powershell.file.script_block_id, file.path, powershell.sequence, powershell.total, _id, _index, host.name, agent.id, user.id
| WHERE count >= 1

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Dynamic IEX Reconstruction via Environment Variables 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).