LoFP LoFP / false positives will only be present if the windbg process legitimately spawns autoit3. filter as needed.

Techniques

Sample rules

Windows WinDBG Spawning AutoIt3

Description

The following analytic identifies instances of the WinDBG process spawning AutoIt3. This behavior may indicate malicious activity as AutoIt3 is often used by threat actors for scripting malicious automation. The search specifically looks for instances where the parent process name is ‘windbg.exe’ and the process name is ‘autoit3.exe’ or ‘autoit*.exe’. During the triage process, it is recommended to review the file path for additional artifacts that may provide further insights into the event.

Detection logic


| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes  where Processes.parent_process_name=windbg.exe  AND (Processes.process_name IN ("autoit3.exe", "autoit*.exe") OR Processes.original_file_name IN ("autoit3.exe", "autoit*.exe")) by Processes.dest, Processes.user, Processes.parent_process_name, Processes.process_name, Processes.original_file_name, Processes.process, Processes.process_id, Processes.parent_process_id 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| eval matches_extension=if(match(process, "\\.(au3
|a3x
|exe
|aut
|aup)$"), "Yes", "No") 
| search matches_extension="Yes" 
| `windows_windbg_spawning_autoit3_filter`