Elastic Security Detection Rules

Unusual Child Process from a System Virtual Process

Last updated 10 days ago on 2025-02-21
Created 5 years ago on 2020-08-19

About

Identifies a suspicious child process of the Windows virtual system process, which could indicate code injection.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Windows Security Event LogsData Source: Microsoft Defender for EndpointData Source: SysmonData Source: SentinelOneLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Process Injection (T1055)(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
endgame-*logs-endpoint.events.process-*logs-m365_defender.event-*logs-sentinel_one_cloud_funnel.*logs-system.security*logs-windows.forwarded*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*winlogbeat-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

system(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
process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
  process.parent.pid == 4 and process.executable : "?*" and
  not process.executable : ("Registry", "MemCompression", "?:\\Windows\\System32\\smss.exe")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Unusual Child Process from a System Virtual 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(opens in a new tab or window).