Suspicious AdFind Active Directory Enumeration via OWASSRF Post-Exploitation (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1087.002Domain Account
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of the AdFind reconnaissance utility by process name or by its characteristic query flags, a discovery step performed after OWASSRF exploitation of Exchange servers. Attackers enumerate domain accounts trusts and objects to plan lateral movement, so AdFind activity outside sanctioned administration is a hands-on-keyboard indicator.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1087.002 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Active Directory Enumeration via SharpHound or BloodHound (via process_creation)

Suspicious Group Discovery - Command (via process_creation)

SharpHound Host Enumeration Over Kerberos (via security)

SPN Enumeration Previous to Kerberoasting Attack - Native Commands (via process_creation)

Suspicious Active Directory Enumeration via AD Explorer Snapshot Process Creation

Malicious Account Added to Domain Admins Group via net Command

Suspicious Remote Connection to ADWS Port 9389 via security

Suspicious Octo Tempest Domain and Network Reconnaissance Tooling (via process_creation)

Suspicious Active Directory Computer Export via csvde (via process_creation)

Suspicious AdFind Active Directory Enumeration via OWASSRF Post-Exploitation (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1087.002 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →