LoFP LoFP / smsexec.exe is not expected to spawn interactive shells or scripting engines under normal operating conditions. false positives are unlikely. validate the full command line and file hash of any match before tuning.

Techniques

Sample rules

Windows SCCM Smsexec Spawned a Suspicious Child Process

Description

The following analytic detects shells, scripting engines, and common post-exploitation utilities spawned as child processes of smsexec.exe. smsexec.exe is the core SCCM SMS Executive service process and has no legitimate reason to launch interactive shells or scripting interpreters. An attacker who plants a malicious adsource.dll in the SCCMProvider bin\X64 directory will obtain code execution in the SCCM service context, typically resulting in a SYSTEM-level child process being spawned under smsexec.exe. If confirmed malicious, this activity represents successful exploitation of the SCCM SMS Executive service and should be treated as a full host compromise.

Detection logic


| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
  count min(_time) as firstTime
        max(_time) as lastTime

from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where

Processes.parent_process_name="smsexec.exe"
Processes.process_name IN (
    "bitsadmin.exe",
    "certutil.exe",
    "cmd.exe",
    "conhost.exe",
    "cscript.exe",
    "curl.exe",
    "mshta.exe",
    "net.exe",
    "net1.exe",
    "powershell.exe",
    "pwsh.exe",
    "reg.exe",
    "regsvr32.exe",
    "rundll32.exe",
    "wmic.exe",
    "wscript.exe"
)

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_sccm_smsexec_spawned_a_suspicious_child_process_filter`