Name:Windows Office Product Spawned Uncommon Process id:55d8741c-fa32-4692-8109-410304961eb8 version:3 date:2025-02-10 author:Michael Haag, Teoderick Contreras, Splunk status:production type:TTP Description:The following analytic detects a Microsoft Office product spawning uncommon processes. This detection leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on process creation events where Office applications are the parent process. This activity is significant as it may indicate an attempt of a malicious macro execution or exploitation of an unknown vulnerability in an office product, in order to bypass security controls. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, potentially leading to system compromise, data exfiltration, or further lateral movement within the network. Data_source:
-Sysmon EventID 1
-Windows Event Log Security 4688
-CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2
search:| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_office_products_parent` AND (`process_bitsadmin` OR `process_certutil` OR `process_cmd` OR `process_cscript` OR `process_mshta` OR `process_powershell` OR `process_regsvr32` OR `process_rundll32` OR `process_wmic` OR `process_wscript`) 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_office_product_spawned_uncommon_process_filter`
