Techniques
Sample rules
CMD Echo Pipe - Escalation
- source: splunk
- technicques:
- T1059.003
- T1543.003
Description
The following analytic identifies the use of named-pipe impersonation for privilege escalation, commonly associated with Cobalt Strike and similar frameworks. It detects command-line executions where cmd.exe uses echo to write to a named pipe, such as cmd.exe /c echo 4sgryt3436 > \\.\Pipe\5erg53. This detection leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process and command-line telemetry. This activity is significant as it indicates potential privilege escalation attempts. If confirmed malicious, attackers could gain elevated privileges, enabling further compromise and persistence within the environment.
Detection logic
| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Processes
WHERE `process_cmd`
OR
Processes.process=*%comspec%* (Processes.process=*echo*
AND
Processes.process=*pipe*)
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)`
| `cmd_echo_pipe___escalation_filter`