Suspicious time provider registered

Synopsis

Field	Value
Activation Period	14 Days
Training Period	30 Days
Test Period	N/A (single event)
Deduplication Period	1 Day
Required Data	XDR Agent
ATT&CK Tactic	Persistence (TA0003)
ATT&CK Technique	Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Time Providers (T1547.003)
Severity	Medium

Description

The endpoint time provider has been tampered, this change may be used to gain persistence on the host by loading libraries into the time management service.

Attacker's Goals

Gain persistence using the legitimate Windows time provider mechanism, which loads libraries into Windows services.

Investigative actions

• Verify if the registered library is malicious.
• Check if the software performing the installation is a malicious binary.
• Check for any network activity from a "svchost.exe -k LocalService" process that seems suspicious.

Variations

Suspicious time provider registered manually by reg.exe

Synopsis

Field	Value
ATT&CK Tactic	Persistence (TA0003)
ATT&CK Technique	Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Time Providers (T1547.003)
Severity	High

Description

The endpoint time provider has been tampered, this change may be used to gain persistence on the host by loading libraries into the time management service.

Attacker's Goals

Gain persistence using the legitimate Windows time provider mechanism, which loads libraries into Windows services.

Investigative actions

• Verify if the registered library is malicious.
• Check if the software performing the installation is a malicious binary.
• Check for any network activity from a "svchost.exe -k LocalService" process that seems suspicious.

Suspicious time provider registered using an uncommon provider name

Synopsis

Field	Value
ATT&CK Tactic	Persistence (TA0003)
ATT&CK Technique	Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Time Providers (T1547.003)
Severity	High

Description

The endpoint time provider has been tampered, this change may be used to gain persistence on the host by loading libraries into the time management service.

Attacker's Goals

Gain persistence using the legitimate Windows time provider mechanism, which loads libraries into Windows services.

Investigative actions

• Verify if the registered library is malicious.
• Check if the software performing the installation is a malicious binary.
• Check for any network activity from a "svchost.exe -k LocalService" process that seems suspicious.