rules/windows/credential_access_rare_webdav_destination.toml

[metadata]
creation_date = "2025/04/28"
integration = ["endpoint", "system", "windows", "m365_defender", "crowdstrike"]
maturity = "production"
updated_date = "2025/04/28"
min_stack_version = "8.17.0"
min_stack_comments = "Elastic ES|QL VALUES aggregation is more performant in 8.16.5 and above."

[rule]
author = ["Elastic"]
description = """
Identifies rare connection attempts to a Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) resource. Attackers may inject
WebDAV paths in files or features opened by a victim user to leak their NTLM credentials via forced authentication.
"""
from = "now-3660s"
language = "esql"
license = "Elastic License v2"
name = "Rare Connection to WebDAV Target"
note = """## Triage and analysis

### Investigating Rare Connection to WebDAV Target

### Possible investigation steps

- Examine the reputation of the destination domain or IP address.
- Verify if the target user opened any attachments or clicked links pointing to the same target within seconds from the alert timestamp.
- Correlate the findings with other security logs and alerts to identify any patterns or additional indicators of compromise related to the potential relay attack.

### False positive analysis

- User accessing legit WebDAV resources.

### Response and remediation

- Conduct a password reset for the target account that may have been compromised or are at risk, ensuring the use of strong, unique passwords.
- Verify whether other users were targeted but did not open the lure..
- Escalate the incident to the security operations center (SOC) or incident response team for further investigation and to determine the full scope of the breach.
- Conduct a post-incident review to identify any gaps in security controls and update policies or procedures to prevent recurrence, ensuring lessons learned are applied to improve overall security posture."""
references = ["https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1187/"]
risk_score = 47
rule_id = "6756ee27-9152-479b-9b73-54b5bbda301c"
severity = "medium"
tags = [
    "Domain: Endpoint",
    "OS: Windows",
    "Use Case: Threat Detection",
    "Tactic: Credential Access",
    "Data Source: Elastic Defend",
    "Data Source: Windows Security Event Logs",
    "Data Source: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint",
    "Data Source: Crowdstrike",
    "Resources: Investigation Guide",
]
timestamp_override = "event.ingested"
type = "esql"

query = '''
FROM logs-*
| where @timestamp > NOW() - 8 hours
| WHERE event.category == "process" and event.type == "start" and process.name == "rundll32.exe" and process.command_line like "*DavSetCookie*"
| keep host.id, process.command_line, user.name
| grok process.command_line """(?<target>DavSetCookie .* http)"""
| eval webdav_target = REPLACE(target, "(DavSetCookie | http)", "")
| where webdav_target is not null and webdav_target rlike """(([a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(@SSL.*)*|(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3})""" and not webdav_target in ("www.google.com@SSL", "www.elastic.co@SSL") and not webdav_target rlike """(10\.(\d{1,3}\.){2}\d{1,3}|172\.(1[6-9]|2\d|3[0-1])\.(\d{1,3}\.)\d{1,3}|192\.168\.(\d{1,3}\.)\d{1,3})"""
| stats total = count(*), unique_count_host = count_distinct(host.id), hosts = VALUES(host.id), users = VALUES(user.name) by webdav_target
| where unique_count_host == 1 and total <= 3
'''


[[rule.threat]]
framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
[[rule.threat.technique]]
id = "T1187"
name = "Forced Authentication"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1187/"


[rule.threat.tactic]
id = "TA0006"
name = "Credential Access"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0006/"