Home > Windows Workstation Logs - Increasing Visibility

Windows Workstation Logs - Increasing Visibility

Anyone who has looked at the number of event IDs assigned to Windows events has probably felt overwhelmed. In the last blog, we looked at some best practices events that are a great start to providing contextual data in the event of a security breach. For example, repeated login failures, attempted privilege escalations, and attempts to manipulate registry entries are all going to provide useful forensic data during incident response. Let’s broaden our horizons. The fact that event IDs exist in several sources beyond Microsoft-Windows-Security-Audit allows us to be more proactive and have a better understanding of how our users and systems interact. It’s all about building a baseline of what is normal and recognizing potential threats and IoCs as sequences of event IDs. Here are some additional event sources and useful IDs that will help increase visibility through a better understanding of network assets and how they are used:

Type

Description

ID

Source

Use Case

AUDIT

Event Log was Cleared

Audit Log was Cleared

104

1102

Microsoft-Windows-Eventlog

Attempt to hide malicious activities

APPLICATION

App Error

App Hang

1000

1002

Application Error

Application Hang

Attempt by malware to interact with an application

APPLOCKER

AppLocker Block

AppLocker Warning

8003, 8004

8006, 8007

Microsoft-Windows-AppLocker

Attempt to violate usage policy on the system

SYSTEM/

SERVICE FAIL

Windows Service Fails/Crashes

7022, 7023, 7024, 7026, 7031, 7032, 7034

Service Control Manager

Repeated failures on the same systems, particularly high value assets could indicate a compromise

KERNEL

Detected an invalid image hash of an image file

Detected an invalid page hash of an image file

Code Integrity Check

Failed Kernel Driver Loading

5038

6281

3001, 3002, 3003, 3004, 3010, 3023

219

Microsoft-Windows-Security-Audit

Microsoft-Windows-Security-Audit

Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity

Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP

Insertion of malicious code or drivers into the kernel

SOFTWARE/

SERVICE INSTALL

New Kernel Filter Driver

New Windows Service

6

7045

Microsoft-Windows-FilterManager

Service Control Manager

Changes to software on critical assets outside of scheduled maintenance windows

WINDOWS DEFENDER

Detected Malware

Action on Malware Failed

1006

1008

Microsoft-Windows-Windows-Defender

Obvious!

Between these events and the list of account, process, and firewall events from the previous blog, you know have a well-rounded security policy. Note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. The idea is to get started with a set of events to build a threat detection policy. There are several other types of events such as those that report on wireless usage, mobile device activities, and print services. These events can be tracked for audit, billing, and resource utilization purposes and periodically archived. The next step is to define how to apply our security policy and to be prepared to tune it over time. To facilitate this process, create a checklist for your environment:
  • Identify which events should be monitored for critical assets versus all endpoints
  • Identify those events that should be tracked at various times of the day
  • Identify events that should trigger an immediate action, such as send an email to an admin; these may be tied to a task directly from the Windows Event Viewer or a series of events can be configured as triggers for alerts via the Task Scheduler
Schedule an event driven task
  • If I don’t use features such as AppLocker or Defender, should I investigate their applicability?
Using Applocker
  • Understand which events should be prioritized in terms of reaction and remediation
  • What events or combinations of events are considered alerts, and which are providing contextual information?
  • What events need to be tied to thresholds that make a clear distinction between normal versus threat?
  • Do I need to have a policy for threat detection and a process for collecting audit information?
Having a clear plan for your security policy will help overcome the biggest issue with all logging and alerting; large numbers of false positives that waste time and resources and possibly detract from a real threat.

Recommended Reference:

Spotting the Adversary Through Windows Event Log Monitoring

https://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/app/spotting_the_adversary_with_windows_event_log_monitoring.pdf

Avatar photo
Natalie Timms
Natalie is a former program manager with the CCIE certification team at Cisco, managing exam curriculums and content for the CCIE Security track before becoming…
Read more