WPAD Service Exploit

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-01-15
Created 5 years ago on 2020-09-02

About

Identifies probable exploitation of the Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) service. Attackers who have access to the local network or upstream DNS traffic can inject malicious JavaScript to the WPAD service which can lead to a full system compromise.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(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.network-*logs-endpoint.events.library-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
/* preference would be to use user.sid rather than domain+name, once it is available in ECS + datasources */
/* didn't trigger successfully during testing */

sequence with maxspan=5s
  [process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and process.name : "svchost.exe" and
     user.domain : "NT AUTHORITY" and user.name : "LOCAL SERVICE"] by process.entity_id
  [network where host.os.type == "windows" and network.protocol : "dns" and process.name : "svchost.exe" and
     dns.question.name : "wpad" and process.name : "svchost.exe"] by process.entity_id
  [network where host.os.type == "windows" and process.name : "svchost.exe"
     and network.direction : ("outgoing", "egress") and destination.port == 80] by process.entity_id
  [library where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type : "start" and process.name : "svchost.exe" and
     dll.name : "jscript.dll" and process.name : "svchost.exe"] by process.entity_id
  [process where host.os.type == "windows" and event.type == "start" and
     process.parent.name : "svchost.exe"] by process.parent.entity_id

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect WPAD Service Exploit 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).