Rare DCOM RPC activity

Synopsis

Field	Value
Activation Period	14 Days
Training Period	30 Days
Test Period	N/A (single event)
Deduplication Period	1 Day
Required Data	Requires one of the following data sources: Palo Alto Networks Firewall EAL Logs OR XDR Agent with eXtended Threat Hunting (XTH)
Detector Tags	NDR Lateral Movement Analytics
ATT&CK Tactic	Lateral Movement (TA0008)
ATT&CK Technique	Remote Services: Distributed Component Object Model (T1021.003)
Severity	Informational

Description

The endpoint performed abnormal DCOM RPC activity to a remote host.

Attacker's Goals

• Attackers may attempt to gain persistence or move laterally over the network by executing code on remote hosts using the DCOM RPC interface.
• The DCOM RPC interface is used to remotely invoke registered COM applications on remote hosts.

Investigative actions

• Review the action of the initiated COM application on the remote host.
• Correlate the RPC call from the source host and understand which software initiated it.* Verify that this isn't IT activity.

Variations

Rare DCOM RPC activity

Synopsis

Field	Value
ATT&CK Tactic	Lateral Movement (TA0008)
ATT&CK Technique	Remote Services: Distributed Component Object Model (T1021.003)
Severity	Low

Description

The endpoint performed abnormal DCOM RPC activity to a remote host.

Attacker's Goals

• Attackers may attempt to gain persistence or move laterally over the network by executing code on remote hosts using the DCOM RPC interface.
• The DCOM RPC interface is used to remotely invoke registered COM applications on remote hosts.

Investigative actions

• Review the action of the initiated COM application on the remote host.
• Correlate the RPC call from the source host and understand which software initiated it.* Verify that this isn't IT activity.