Privilege Escalation via Windir Environment Variable

Last updated 4 months ago on 2025-09-11

Created 5 years ago on 2020-11-26

About

Identifies a privilege escalation attempt via a rogue Windows directory (Windir) environment variable. This is a known primitive that is often combined with other vulnerabilities to elevate privileges.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SentinelOneData Source: CrowdstrikeLanguage: eql

Severity

high

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Hijack Execution Flow (T1574)(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.registry-*endgame-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*winlogbeat-*logs-m365_defender.event-*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*logs-crowdstrike.fdr*

Related Integrations

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

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

m365_defender(external, opens in a new tab or window)

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

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

Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗registry where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "change" and
registry.value : ("windir", "systemroot") and registry.data.strings != null and
registry.path : (
    "*\\Environment\\windir",
    "*\\Environment\\systemroot"
    ) and
 not registry.data.strings : ("C:\\windows", "%SystemRoot%")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Privilege Escalation via Windir Environment Variable 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).