LoFP LoFP / system administrators or monitoring tools may legitimately use these utilities to gather logs for troubleshooting or auditing. filter known admin behavior or monitoring solutions as needed.

Techniques

Sample rules

Windows EventLog Recon Activity Using Log Query Utilities

Description

This analytic detects EventLog reconnaissance activity using utilities such as wevtutil.exe, wmic.exe, PowerShell cmdlets like Get-WinEvent, or WMI queries targeting Win32_NTLogEvent. It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process names and command-line arguments. These tools are often used by adversaries to extract usernames, IP addresses, session data, and event information for credential access or situational awareness during lateral movement. While these utilities are legitimate, execution with specific arguments or targeting sensitive logs like Security, PowerShell, or specific EventIDs (e.g., 4624, 4778) can indicate malicious intent. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could allow an attacker to extract sensitive info and potentially have leveraged access or move laterally.

Detection logic


| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` values(Processes.process) as process
  min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime 
  from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes 
  where (
    (Processes.process_name IN ("powershell.exe", "pwsh.exe", "powershell_ise.exe") AND Processes.process IN ("*Get-WinEvent*", "*Get-EventLog*", "*EventLogQuery*", "*.ReadEvent(*"))
    OR
    (Processes.process_name=wevtutil.exe Processes.process IN ("* qe *", "* query-events *"))
    OR
    (Processes.process_name=wmic.exe Processes.process IN ("*ntevent*"))
    OR
    (Processes.process="*Win32_NTLogEvent*" AND Processes.process="*EventCode*")
    OR
    (Processes.process IN ("*PsLogList*", "*Eventquery*"))
  ) 
  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_eventlog_recon_activity_using_log_query_utilities_filter`