false positives could arise from administrative activity such as audit policy setup. apply additional filters to known scripts and parent processes performing this action where necessary.

Techniques

T1562.002

Sample rules

Windows Audit Policy Restored via Auditpol

source: splunk
technicques:
- T1562.002

Description

The following analytic identifies the execution of auditpol.exe with the “/restore” command-line argument used to restore the audit policy from a file. It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process names and command-line executions. This activity can be significant as it indicates potential defense evasion by adversaries or Red Teams, aiming to limit data that can be leveraged for detections and audits. Attackers can provide an audit policy file that disables certain or all audit policy configuration. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could allow attackers to bypass defenses, and plan further attacks, potentially leading to full machine compromise or lateral movement.

Detection logic


| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Processes.process) as process min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Processes
  WHERE `process_auditpol` Processes.process="*/restore*" Processes.process="*/file*"
    AND
    NOT Processes.process="*/?*"
  BY Processes.action Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name
     Processes.parent_process Processes.parent_process_exec Processes.parent_process_guid
     Processes.parent_process_id Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_path
     Processes.process Processes.process_exec Processes.process_guid
     Processes.process_hash Processes.process_id Processes.process_integrity_level
     Processes.process_name Processes.process_path Processes.user
     Processes.user_id Processes.vendor_product

| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`

| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`

| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`

| `windows_audit_policy_restored_via_auditpol_filter`