Detectionhighexperimental
Suspicious Process Access to LSASS with Dbgcore/Dbghelp DLLs
Detects suspicious process access to LSASS.exe from processes located in uncommon locations with dbgcore.dll or dbghelp.dll in the call trace. These DLLs contain functions like MiniDumpWriteDump that can be abused for credential dumping purposes. While modern tools like Mimikatz have moved to using ntdll.dll, dbgcore.dll and dbghelp.dll are still used by basic credential dumping utilities and legacy tools for LSASS memory access and process suspension techniques.
Convert In Phoenix Studio
Open this Sigma rule in the converter with the YAML preloaded and ready for backend selection.
Launch
Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)Created Thu Nov 279f5c1d59-33be-4e60-bcab-85d2f566effdwindows
Log Source
WindowsProcess Access
ProductWindows← raw: windows
CategoryProcess Access← raw: process_access
Events when a process opens a handle to another process, commonly used for credential dumping via LSASS.
Detection Logic
Detection Logic2 selectors
detection:
selection_lsass_calltrace:
TargetImage|endswith: '\lsass.exe'
CallTrace|contains:
- 'dbgcore.dll'
- 'dbghelp.dll'
# The following selection is commented out and not enabled by default because any access to LSASS with dbgcore.dll or dbghelp.dll in the call trace from uncommon locations is assumed to be suspicious,
# but it may reduce false positives if the rule is too noisy. These GrantedAccess bits are commonly used for dumping LSASS memory.
# Uncomment if you observe false positives with the default rule.
# selection_granted_access:
# GrantedAccess|contains:
# - '0x1fffff'
# - '0x10'
# - '0x1010'
# - '0x1410'
# - '0x1438'
selection_susp_location:
SourceImage|contains:
- ':\Perflogs\'
- ':\Temp\'
- ':\Users\Public\'
- '\$Recycle.Bin\'
- '\AppData\Roaming\'
- '\Contacts\'
- '\Desktop\'
- '\Documents\'
- '\Downloads\'
- '\Favorites\'
- '\Favourites\'
- '\inetpub\wwwroot\'
- '\Music\'
- '\Pictures\'
- '\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\'
- '\Users\Default\'
- '\Videos\'
- '\Windows\Temp\'
condition: all of selection_*False Positives
Possibly during software installation or update processes
MITRE ATT&CK
Rule Metadata
Rule ID
9f5c1d59-33be-4e60-bcab-85d2f566effd
Status
experimental
Level
high
Type
Detection
Created
Thu Nov 27
Path
rules/windows/process_access/proc_access_win_susp_dbgcore_dbghelp_load.yml
Raw Tags
attack.credential-accessattack.t1003.001attack.defense-evasionattack.t1562.001