Detectionhighexperimental

DNS Query by Finger Utility

Detects DNS queries made by the finger utility, which can be abused by threat actors to retrieve remote commands for execution on Windows devices. In one ClickFix malware campaign, adversaries leveraged the finger protocol to fetch commands from a remote server. Since the finger utility is not commonly used in modern Windows environments, its presence already raises suspicion. Investigating such DNS queries can also help identify potential malicious infrastructure used by threat actors for command and control (C2) communication.

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Launch
Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)Created Wed Nov 19c082c2b0-525b-4dbc-9a26-a57dc4692074windows
Log Source
WindowsDNS Query
ProductWindows← raw: windows
CategoryDNS Query← raw: dns_query

DNS lookup events generated by endpoint monitoring tools.

Detection Logic
Detection Logic1 selector
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith: '\finger.exe'
    condition: selection
False Positives
Unlikely

False positives are unlikely for most environments. High confidence detection.

Rule Metadata
Rule ID
c082c2b0-525b-4dbc-9a26-a57dc4692074
Status
experimental
Level
high
Type
Detection
Created
Wed Nov 19
Path
rules/windows/dns_query/dns_query_win_finger.yml
Raw Tags
attack.command-and-controlattack.t1071.004attack.executionattack.t1059.003
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