↳ GitHub sourceAnalytics ruleMedium
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
Related content
Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.
Source provenance
GitHubDisplayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.
- Commit
9800e51↗- Source identifier
dd22dc4f-ab7c-4d0a-84ad-cc393638ba31
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING
Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC