Windows Terminating Lsass Process

name: Windows Terminating Lsass Process
id: 7ab3c319-a4e7-4211-9e8c-40a049d0dba6
version: 13
date: '2026-04-15'
author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
status: production
type: Anomaly
description: The following analytic detects a suspicious process attempting to terminate the Lsass.exe process. It leverages Sysmon EventCode 10 logs to identify processes granted PROCESS_TERMINATE access to Lsass.exe. This activity is significant because Lsass.exe is a critical process responsible for enforcing security policies and handling user credentials. If confirmed malicious, this behavior could indicate an attempt to perform credential dumping, privilege escalation, or evasion of security policies, potentially leading to unauthorized access and persistence within the environment.
data_source:
    - Sysmon EventID 10
search: |-
    `sysmon` EventCode=10 TargetImage=*lsass.exe GrantedAccess = 0x1
      | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime
        BY CallTrace EventID GrantedAccess
           Guid Opcode ProcessID
           SecurityID SourceImage SourceProcessGUID
           SourceProcessId TargetImage TargetProcessGUID
           TargetProcessId UserID dest
           granted_access parent_process_exec parent_process_guid
           parent_process_id parent_process_name parent_process_path
           process_exec process_guid process_id
           process_name process_path signature
           signature_id user_id vendor_product
      | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
      | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
      | `windows_terminating_lsass_process_filter`
how_to_implement: This search requires Sysmon Logs and a Sysmon configuration, which includes EventCode 10 for lsass.exe. This search uses an input macro named `sysmon`. We strongly recommend that you specify your environment-specific configurations (index, source, sourcetype, etc.) for Windows Sysmon logs. Replace the macro definition with configurations for your Splunk environment. The search also uses a post-filter macro designed to filter out known false positives.
known_false_positives: No false positives have been identified at this time.
references:
    - https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2022/03/threat-advisory-doublezero.html
drilldown_searches:
    - name: View the detection results for - "$dest$"
      search: '%original_detection_search% | search  dest = "$dest$"'
      earliest_offset: $info_min_time$
      latest_offset: $info_max_time$
    - name: View risk events for the last 7 days for - "$dest$"
      search: '| from datamodel Risk.All_Risk | search normalized_risk_object IN ("$dest$") | stats count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime values(search_name) as "Search Name" values(risk_message) as "Risk Message" values(analyticstories) as "Analytic Stories" values(annotations._all) as "Annotations" values(annotations.mitre_attack.mitre_tactic) as "ATT&CK Tactics" by normalized_risk_object | `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` | `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`'
      earliest_offset: 7d
      latest_offset: "0"
rba:
    message: a process $SourceImage$ terminates Lsass process on $dest$
    risk_objects:
        - field: dest
          type: system
          score: 20
    threat_objects:
        - field: TargetImage
          type: process
tags:
    analytic_story:
        - Data Destruction
        - Double Zero Destructor
        - Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters
    asset_type: Endpoint
    mitre_attack_id:
        - T1562.001
    product:
        - Splunk Enterprise
        - Splunk Enterprise Security
        - Splunk Cloud
    security_domain: endpoint
tests:
    - name: True Positive Test
      attack_data:
        - data: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/splunk/attack_data/master/datasets/malware/doublezero_wiper/sysmon.log
          source: XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational
          sourcetype: XmlWinEventLog