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T1547.008 LSASS Driver

Adversaries may modify or add LSASS drivers to obtain persistence on compromised systems. The Windows security subsystem is a set of components that manage and enforce the security policy for a computer or domain. The Local Security Authority (LSA) is the main component responsible for local security policy and user authentication. The LSA includes multiple dynamic link libraries (DLLs) associated with various other security functions, all of which run in the context of the LSA Subsystem Service (LSASS) lsass.exe process.3

Adversaries may target LSASS drivers to obtain persistence. By either replacing or adding illegitimate drivers (e.g., Hijack Execution Flow), an adversary can use LSA operations to continuously execute malicious payloads.

Item Value
ID T1547.008
Sub-techniques T1547.001, T1547.002, T1547.003, T1547.004, T1547.005, T1547.006, T1547.007, T1547.008, T1547.009, T1547.010, T1547.012, T1547.013, T1547.014, T1547.015
Tactics TA0003, TA0004
Platforms Windows
Permissions required Administrator, SYSTEM
Version 1.0
Created 24 January 2020
Last Modified 20 April 2022

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0208 Pasam Pasam establishes by infecting the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) DLL to load a malicious DLL dropped to disk.9
S0176 Wingbird Wingbird drops a malicious file (sspisrv.dll) alongside a copy of lsass.exe, which is used to register a service that loads sspisrv.dll as a driver. The payload of the malicious driver (located in its entry-point function) is executed when loaded by lsass.exe before the spoofed service becomes unstable and crashes.78

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1043 Credential Access Protection On Windows 10 and Server 2016, enable Windows Defender Credential Guard 5 to run lsass.exe in an isolated virtualized environment without any device drivers. 6
M1025 Privileged Process Integrity On Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2, enable LSA Protection by setting the Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\RunAsPPL to dword:00000001. 1 LSA Protection ensures that LSA plug-ins and drivers are only loaded if they are digitally signed with a Microsoft signature and adhere to the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process guidance.
M1044 Restrict Library Loading Ensure safe DLL search mode is enabled HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SafeDllSearchMode to mitigate risk that lsass.exe loads a malicious code library. 2

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0027 Driver Driver Load
DS0022 File File Creation
DS0011 Module Module Load

References

  1. Microsoft. (2014, March 12). Configuring Additional LSA Protection. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  2. Microsoft. (n.d.). Dynamic-Link Library Security. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  3. Microsoft. (n.d.). Security Subsystem Architecture. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  4. Russinovich, M. (2016, January 4). Autoruns for Windows v13.51. Retrieved June 6, 2016. ↩

  5. Lich, B., Tobin, J., Hall, J. (2017, April 5). Manage Windows Defender Credential Guard. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  6. Lich, B., Tobin, J. (2017, April 5). How Windows Defender Credential Guard works. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  7. Anthe, C. et al. (2016, December 14). Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 21. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  8. Microsoft. (2017, November 9). Backdoor:Win32/Wingbird.A!dha. Retrieved November 27, 2017. ↩

  9. Mullaney, C. & Honda, H. (2012, May 4). Trojan.Pasam. Retrieved February 22, 2018. ↩