Research Report Released: Detecting Lateral Movement through Tracking Event Logs

JPCERT/CC has been seeing a number of APT intrusions where attackers compromise a host with malware then moving laterally inside network in order to steal confidential information. For lateral movement, attackers use tools downloaded on infected hosts and Windows commands.

In incident investigation, traces of tool and command executions are examined through logs. For an effective incident investigation, a reference about logs recorded upon tool and command executions would be useful.

JPCERT/CC conducted a research on typical tools and commands that attackers use after intrusion, and traces that they leave on Windows when executed. The result of the research is available on the report below:

Detecting Lateral Movement through Tracking Event Logs

https://www.jpcert.or.jp/english/pub/sr/ir_research.html

This entry will introduce the overview of the report.

Intended Audience

This report is designed for technical staff including those responsible for initial investigation of incidents. Even without forensic software or knowledge in forensics, readers capable of examining event logs and registry entries can understand the contents.

Tools and Commands

44 typical tools and commands have been featured on the report (as described in Appendix A) based on what JPCERT/CC has seen in multiple incident cases. Since these tools and commands are used by multiple attackers, it is likely that analysts encounter some of them during incident investigation.

Need for Detailed Logs

Under the default configuration of Windows, many of these tools and commands are not logged. In order to investigate what attackers did during the incident, preparation for log retention is necessary. The report describes how to record tools and command executions by setting audit policy and installing Sysmon. Other than the methods explained in the report, it is also possible to collect such logs with audit applications or EDR products.

Way Forward

We are planning to examine other tools and commands as well. In addition to event logs and registry entries, we will also look into forensic artifacts such as MFT and journal files.

We welcome any feedback from you at global-cc [at] jpcert.or.jp.

-         Shusei Tomonaga

(Translated by Yukako Uchida)

Appendix A:  Examined Commands and Tools
Table 1: List of Examined Commands and Tools
Attacker's Purpose of Using Tool Tool
Command execution PsExec
wmic
PowerShell
wmiexec.vbs
BeginX
winrm
at
winrs
BITS
Obtaining password hash PWDump7
Quarks PwDump
mimikatz
WCE
gsecdump
lslsass
Find-GPOPasswords.ps1
Mail PassView
WebBrowserPassView
Remote Desktop PassView
PWDumpX
Malicious communication relay
(Packet tunneling)
Htran
Fake wpad
Remote login RDP
Pass-the-hash
Pass-the-ticket
WCE
mimikatz
Escalation to SYSTEM privilege MS14-058 Exploit
MS15-078 Exploit
Privilege escalation SDB UAC Bypass
Capturing domain administrator
rights account
MS14-068 Exploit
Golden Ticket (mimikatz)
Silver Ticket (mimikatz)
Capturing Active Directory database
(Creating a domain administrator user or
adding it to an administrator group)
ntdsutil
vssadmin
Adding or deleting a user group net user
File sharing net use
net share
icacls
Deleting evidence sdelete
timestomp
Deleting event log wevtutil
Obtaining account information csvde
ldifde
dsquery
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