Suspicious Service BinPath Set to Command Interpreter or Account Creation

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1136.001Local Account
- T1543.003Windows Service
Priv Esc
- T1543.003Windows Service
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of sc.exe to set a service binary path to a command interpreter or a local account creation command, the service-abuse primitive used in the CVE-2019-1322 Update Orchestrator Service escalation to add a local administrator as SYSTEM. Pointing a service binPath at cmd or a net user add command is a common hijack for privilege escalation and persistence.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1543.003 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Dynamicweb Unauthenticated Administrator Creation via Setup Default.aspx (via webserver)

Suspicious RustDesk Remote Access Service Installation via sc (via process_creation)

Malicious Service Creation Pointing to Public Data File via sc (via process_creation)

Suspicious Hidden Backdoor Account Creation Ending With Dollar Sign (via process_creation)

EAP Service Activation by Liontail Framework for DLL Sideloading - Via Command (via process_creation)

Malicious Service Permissions Hijacked for Privileges Abuse - Service (via process_creation)

Malicious Service Abuse with Backdoored "command Failure" - Service (via process_creation)

Malicious Service Permissions Hijacked for Privileges Abuse - Reg via Command (via process_creation)

Malicious Mimikatz Driver Registration - Reg via Sysmon (via registry_event)

Suspicious Service BinPath Set to Command Interpreter or Account Creation

Pivot detection · T1543.003 · 9 related

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

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