sam is a critical windows service, stopping it would cause major issues on an endpoint this makes false positive rare. althoughno false positives have been identified.

Techniques

T1489

Sample rules

Windows Security Account Manager Stopped

source: splunk
technicques:
- T1489

Description

The following analytic detects the stopping of the Windows Security Account Manager (SAM) service via command-line, typically using the “net stop samss” command. This detection leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process names and command-line executions. This activity is significant because stopping the SAM service can disrupt authentication mechanisms and is often associated with ransomware attacks like Ryuk. If confirmed malicious, this action could lead to unauthorized access, privilege escalation, and potential system-wide compromise.

Detection logic


| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Processes WHERE ("Processes.process_name"="net*.exe" "Processes.process"="*stop \"samss\"*") BY Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.process Processes.process_guid Processes.process_name 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `windows_security_account_manager_stopped_filter`