Time Providers
Where this stands
One published detection covers this technique. Every one is unverified — no rule on Siemphony has been executed against real telemetry.
What the technique is
Adversaries may abuse time providers to execute DLLs when the system boots. The Windows Time service (W32Time) enables time synchronization across and within domains. W32Time time providers are responsible for retrieving time stamps from hardware/network resources and outputting these values to other network clients. Time providers are implemented as dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are registered in the subkeys of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\. The time provider manager, directed by the service control manager, loads and starts time providers listed and enabled under this key at system startup and/or whenever parameters are changed. Adversaries may abuse this architecture to establish persistence, specifically by creating a new arbitrarily named subkey pointing to a malicious DLL in the DllName value. Administrator privileges are required for time provider registration, though execution will run in context of the Local Service account.
Read it on attack.mitre.orgWhat MITRE says you would watch
- AN0341
Behavioral correlation of privileged registry key creation under the W32Time TimeProviders path combined with a new DLL written to disk and potential process activity by LocalService. Indicates abuse of Time Providers for persistence.
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