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Match Legitimate Name or Location - 2

Description

Attackers often match or approximate the name or location of legitimate files to avoid detection rules that are based trust of on certain operating system processes. This query detects mismatches in the parent-child relationship of core operating system processes to uncover different masquerading attempts.
Rule type
Scheduled
Version
1.0.1
Declared status
Available
Query frequency
1h
Query period
1h
Trigger
gt 0

Declared MITRE coverage

Declared sources

Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.

Connectors

Data types

KQL query

Original query, unchanged.

let ProcessRelations=datatable(ImageFile:string,ExpectedParent:dynamic) [
  "smss.exe", dynamic(["smss.exe", "ntoskrnl.exe", ""]),
  "crmss.exe", dynamic(["smss.exe"]),
  "wininit.exe", dynamic(["smss.exe"]),
  "winlogon.exe", dynamic(["smss.exe"]),
  "services.exe", dynamic(["wininit.exe"]),
  "lsaiso.exe", dynamic(["wininit.exe"]),
  "lsass.exe", dynamic(["wininit.exe"]),
  "spoolsv.exe", dynamic(["services.exe"]),
  "dllhost.exe", dynamic(["svchost.exe", "services.exe"]),
  "lsm.exe", dynamic(["wininit.exe"]),
  "svchost.exe", dynamic(["services.exe", "msmpeng.exe"]),
  "runtimebroker.exe", dynamic(["svchost.exe"]),
  "taskhostw.exe", dynamic(["svchost.exe"]),
  "userinit.exe", dynamic(["winlogon.exe"])
  // Explorer can have a lot of parents in some environments
  //,"explorer.exe", dynamic(["userinit.exe"])
];
DeviceProcessEvents
| extend ImageFile = tostring(tolower(parse_path(tostring(FolderPath)).Filename))
| extend ParentFile = tostring(tolower(parse_path(tostring(InitiatingProcessFolderPath)).Filename))
| lookup kind=inner ProcessRelations on ImageFile
| where not(set_has_element(ExpectedParent,ParentFile))

Declared entities

HostAccountProcess

Related content

Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.

Source provenance

GitHub

Displayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.

Source identifier
dd22dc4f-ab7c-4d0a-84ad-cc393638ba31
Additional source files 2Solutions/FalconFriday/Analytic Rules/MatchLegitimateNameOrLocation.yamlsource ↗Solutions/FalconFriday/Data/Solution_FalconFriday.jsonsolution-membership ↗
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING

Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC

GSTEP sync dates, separate from the source content’s publication dates.