Techniques
Sample rules
Cobalt Strike Named Pipes
- source: splunk
- technicques:
- T1055
Description
The following analytic detects the use of default or publicly known named pipes associated with Cobalt Strike. It leverages Sysmon EventID 17 and 18 to identify specific named pipes commonly used by Cobalt Strike’s Artifact Kit and Malleable C2 Profiles. This activity is significant because Cobalt Strike is a popular tool for adversaries to conduct post-exploitation tasks, and identifying its named pipes can reveal potential malicious activity. If confirmed malicious, this could indicate an active Cobalt Strike beacon, leading to unauthorized access, data exfiltration, or further lateral movement within the network.
Detection logic
`sysmon` EventID=17 OR EventID=18 PipeName IN (\\msagent_*, \\DserNamePipe*, \\srvsvc_*, \\postex_*, \\status_*, \\MSSE-*, \\spoolss_*, \\win_svc*, \\ntsvcs*, \\winsock*, \\UIA_PIPE*)
| stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime by dest dvc pipe_name process_exec process_guid process_id process_name process_path signature signature_id user_id vendor_product Image PipeName
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
| `cobalt_strike_named_pipes_filter`