LoFP / some legitimate printer-related processes may show up as children of spoolsv.exe. you should confirm that any activity as legitimate and may be added as exclusions in the search.

Techniques

• T1068

Sample rules

Child Processes of Spoolsv exe

• source: splunk
• technicques:
  • T1068

Description

The following analytic identifies child processes spawned by spoolsv.exe, the Print Spooler service in Windows, which typically runs with SYSTEM privileges. This detection leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process and parent process relationships. Monitoring this activity is crucial as it can indicate exploitation attempts, such as those associated with CVE-2018-8440, which can lead to privilege escalation. If confirmed malicious, attackers could gain SYSTEM-level access, allowing them to execute arbitrary code, escalate privileges, and potentially compromise the entire system.

Detection logic

| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count values(Processes.process_name) as process_name values(Processes.process) as process min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.parent_process_name=spoolsv.exe AND Processes.process_name!=regsvr32.exe by Processes.dest Processes.parent_process Processes.user 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `child_processes_of_spoolsv_exe_filter`