Skip to main content

Unsigned and unpopular process performed an injection

This Playbook is part of the Core - Investigation and Response Pack.#

Supported versions

Supported Cortex XSOAR versions: 8.0.0 and later.

This playbook addresses the following alerts:

  • Unsigned and unpopular process performed injection into a commonly abused process
  • Unsigned and unpopular process performed process hollowing injection
  • Unsigned and unpopular process performed queue APC injection
  • Unsigned and unpopular process performed injection into a sensitive process
  • Unsigned and unpopular process performed injection into svchost.exe

Playbook Stages:

Triage:

  • Retrieve all alerts associated with the case for initial analysis.

Early Containment:

  • Identify whether an agent prevention rule was triggered for the same process ID. If so, there is high confidence that the alert is malicious.
    • If triggered in prevent mode: This indicates a high-confidence verdict and the playbook proceeds with endpoint isolation.
    • If triggered in report mode: This also indicates a high-confidence verdict. The playbook will notify the customer, advise an update to prevent mode for better protection in the future, and proceed with the investigation.
    • If no rule is triggered: The playbook will continue with additional checks to ensure thorough assessment.

Investigation:

  • Check for commonly triggered alerts that often precede process injection:
    • If found, initiate containment.
    • If not found, proceed with additional checks.
  • Analyze if any alerts align with MITRE ATT&CK tactics TA0004 (Privilege Escalation) and TA0005 (Defense Evasion):
    • If matching tactics are found, initiate containment.
    • If not, proceed with further investigation.
  • Determine if the causality (parent) process is signed:
    • If signed by a trusted authority, close the alert.
    • If unsigned, escalate for manual approval for containment.

Containment:

  • For alerts validated as threats, execute the following actions:
    • Terminate the causality process (CGO) if deemed malicious.
    • Isolate the endpoint in high-risk scenarios to prevent further compromise.

Requirements:

For response actions, you need the following integrations:

  • Cortex Core - Investigation and Response.

Dependencies#

This playbook uses the following sub-playbooks, integrations, and scripts.

Sub-playbooks#

This playbook does not use any sub-playbooks.

Integrations#

  • CortexCoreIR

Scripts#

  • Print
  • SearchIncidentsV2

Commands#

  • closeInvestigation
  • core-isolate-endpoint
  • core-terminate-causality

Playbook Inputs#


There are no inputs for this playbook.

Playbook Outputs#


There are no outputs for this playbook.

Playbook Image#


Unsigned and unpopular process performed an injection