adfind is a command-line tool for ad administration and management that is seen to be leveraged by various adversaries. filter out legitimate administrator usage using the filter macro.

Techniques

T1018

Sample rules

Windows AdFind Exe

source: splunk
technicques:
- T1018

Description

This search looks for the execution of adfind.exe with command-line arguments that it uses by default specifically the filter or search functions. It also considers the arguments necessary like objectcategory, see readme for more details: https://www.joeware.net/freetools/tools/adfind/usage.htm. AdFind.exe is a powerful tool that is commonly used for querying and retrieving information from Active Directory (AD). While it is primarily designed for AD administration and management, it has been seen used before by Wizard Spider, FIN6 and actors whom also launched SUNBURST.

Detection logic


| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where (Processes.process="* -f *" OR Processes.process="* -b *") AND (Processes.process=*objectcategory* OR Processes.process="* -gcb *" OR Processes.process="* -sc *") by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.parent_process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `windows_adfind_exe_filter`