Potential Remote Desktop Shadowing Activity

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 4 years ago on 2021-04-12

About

Identifies the modification of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Shadow registry or the execution of processes indicative of an active RDP shadowing session. An adversary may abuse the RDP Shadowing feature to spy on or control other users active RDP sessions.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Lateral MovementData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Lateral Movement (TA0008)(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
logs-endpoint.events.process-*logs-endpoint.events.registry-*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
/* Identifies the modification of RDP Shadow registry or
  the execution of processes indicative of active shadow RDP session */

any where host.os.type == "windows" and
(
  (event.category == "registry" and
     registry.path : (
      "HKLM\\Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\Terminal Services\\Shadow",
      "\\REGISTRY\\MACHINE\\Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\Terminal Services\\Shadow",
      "MACHINE\\Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\Terminal Services\\Shadow"
    )
  ) or
  (event.category == "process" and event.type == "start" and
     (process.name : ("RdpSaUacHelper.exe", "RdpSaProxy.exe") and process.parent.name : "svchost.exe") or
     (?process.pe.original_file_name : "mstsc.exe" and process.args : "/shadow:*")
  )
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Remote Desktop Shadowing Activity 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).