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Disable or Modify Windows Defender

This detection watches the commandline logs for known commands that are used to disable the Defender AV. This is based on research performed by @olafhartong on a large sample of malware for varying purposes. Note…

Description

This detection watches the commandline logs for known commands that are used to disable the Defender AV. This is based on research performed by @olafhartong on a large sample of malware for varying purposes. Note that this detection is imperfect and is only meant to serve as basis for building a more resilient detection rule. Make the detection more resilient, currently the order of parameters matters. You don't want that for a production rule. See blogpost (https://medium.com/falconforce/falconfriday-av-manipulation-0xff0e-67ed4387f9ab?source=friends_link&sk=3c7c499797bbb4d74879e102ef3ecf8f) for more resilience considerations. The current approach can easily be bypassed by not using the powershell.exe executable. Consider adding more ways to detect this behavior.

Detection logic

Detection requirements

Platform
ContainersIaaSLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesWindows

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.

Log source product
microsoftthreatprotection
Log source service
deviceprocessevents

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