sigmamediumHunting

Potential Persistence Via PowerShell User Profile Using Add-Content

Detects calls to "Add-Content" cmdlet in order to modify the content of the user profile and potentially adding suspicious commands for persistence

MITRE ATT&CK

T1546.013

persistenceprivilege-escalation

Detection Query

selection_add:
  ScriptBlockText|contains: Add-Content $profile
selection_options:
  ScriptBlockText|contains:
    - '-Value "IEX '
    - -Value "Invoke-Expression
    - -Value "Invoke-WebRequest
    - -Value "Start-Process
    - "-Value 'IEX "
    - -Value 'Invoke-Expression
    - -Value 'Invoke-WebRequest
    - -Value 'Start-Process
condition: all of selection_*

Author

frack113, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)

Created

2021-08-18

Data Sources

windowsps_script

Platforms

windows

References

https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1546.013/T1546.013.md

Tags

attack.persistenceattack.privilege-escalationattack.t1546.013

Raw Content

title: Potential Persistence Via PowerShell User Profile Using Add-Content
id: 05b3e303-faf0-4f4a-9b30-46cc13e69152
status: test
description: Detects calls to "Add-Content" cmdlet in order to modify the content of the user profile and potentially adding suspicious commands for persistence
references:
    - https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1546.013/T1546.013.md
author: frack113, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2021-08-18
modified: 2023-05-04
tags:
    - attack.persistence
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.t1546.013
logsource:
    product: windows
    category: ps_script
    definition: 'Requirements: Script Block Logging must be enabled'
detection:
    selection_add:
        ScriptBlockText|contains: 'Add-Content $profile'
    selection_options:
        ScriptBlockText|contains:
            # Note: You can add more suspicious values
            - '-Value "IEX '
            - '-Value "Invoke-Expression'
            - '-Value "Invoke-WebRequest'
            - '-Value "Start-Process'
            - "-Value 'IEX "
            - "-Value 'Invoke-Expression"
            - "-Value 'Invoke-WebRequest"
            - "-Value 'Start-Process"
    condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate administration and tuning scripts that aim to add functionality to a user PowerShell session
level: medium