Submission Date: 2021/05/11

Update Date:

Information Domain: Analytic

Data Subtypes: Process

Analytic Type: TTP

Applicable Platforms: Windows

Contributors: Splunk Threat Research



The following query identifies Microsoft Background Intelligent Transfer Service utility bitsadmin.exe scheduling a BITS job to persist on an endpoint. The query identifies the parameters used to create, resume or add a file to a BITS job. Typically seen combined in a oneliner or ran in sequence. If identified, review the BITS job created and capture any files written to disk. It is possible for BITS to be used to upload files and this may require further network data analysis to identify. You can use bitsadmin /list /verbose to list out the jobs during investigation.

ATT&CK Detections

Technique Subtechnique(s) Tactic(s) Level of Coverage
BITS Jobs N/A Defense Evasion, Persistence Moderate

D3FEND Techniques

ID Name
D3-PSA Process Spawn Analysis

Data Model References

Object Action Field
process create exe
process create command_line

Implementations

Pseudocode – detect a BITS job being scheduled (Pseudocode, CAR native)

Pseudocode implementation of the splunk search below

processes = search Process:Create
bitsadmin_commands = filter processes where (
  exe ="C:\Windows\System32\bitsadmin.exe" AND command_line includes one of [*create*, *addfile*, *setnotifyflags*, *setnotifycmdline*, *setminretrydelay*, *setcustomheaders*,*resume*])
output bitsadmin_commands

Splunk code (Splunk, Endpoint)

To successfully implement this search you need to be ingesting information on process that include the name of the process responsible for the changes from your endpoints into the Endpoint datamodel in the Processes node.

| tstats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where Processes.process_name=bitsadmin.exe Processes.process IN (*create*, *addfile*, *setnotifyflags*, *setnotifycmdline*, *setminretrydelay*, *setcustomheaders*, *resume* ) by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id

Unit Tests

Test Case 1

Configurations: Using Splunk Attack Range

Replay the detection dataset using the Splunk attack range with the commands below

python attack_range.py replay -dn data_dump [--dump NAME_OF_DUMP]

Test Case 2

Configurations: Using Invoke-AtomicRedTeam

execute the atomic test T1197 against a Windows target.

Invoke-AtomicTest T1197