Suspicious Copy From or To System Directory
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About the rule
Rule Type
Standard
Rule Description
Detects a suspicious copy operation that tries to copy a program from system (System32, SysWOW64, WinSxS) directories to another on disk. Often used to move LOLBINs such as 'certutil' or 'desktopimgdownldr' to a different location with a different name in order to bypass detections based on locations.
Severity
Trouble
Rule Requirement
Criteria
Action1: actionname = "Process started" AND ((PROCESSNAME endswith "\cmd.exe" AND COMMANDLINE contains "copy ") OR (PROCESSNAME endswith "\powershell.exe,\pwsh.exe" AND COMMANDLINE contains "copy-item, copy ,cpi , cp ") OR (PROCESSNAME endswith "\robocopy.exe,\xcopy.exe" OR ORIGINALFILENAME = "robocopy.exe,XCOPY.EXE")) AND COMMANDLINE contains "\System32,\SysWOW64,\WinSxS" select Action1.HOSTNAME,Action1.MESSAGE,Action1.COMMANDLINE,Action1.FILE_NAME,Action1.PROCESSNAME,Action1.USERNAME,Action1.PARENTPROCESSNAME
Detection
Execution Mode
realtime
Log Sources
Windows
Author
Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Markus Neis, Tim Shelton (HAWK.IO), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
