Remote Management and Monitoring tool - AweSun - Create Process

Hunt Hypothesis

AweSun, a remote management tool, is being used by adversaries to create persistence or establish command and control channels by spawning malicious processes on target systems. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to detect and mitigate potential long-term adversary presence and exfiltration capabilities.

KQL Query

let Time_start = now(-5d);
let Time_end = now();
//
DeviceProcessEvents 
| where Timestamp between (Time_start..Time_end)
| where ProcessVersionInfoCompanyName has 'AweRay'
    and ProcessVersionInfoProductName has 'AweSun'
| summarize FirstSeen=min(Timestamp), LastSeen=max(Timestamp), 
    Report=make_set(ReportId), Count=count() by DeviceId, DeviceName

Analytic Rule Definition

id: 007fcd0d-38c8-44a9-be56-827c4d57b150
name: Remote Management and Monitoring tool - AweSun - Create Process
description: |
    Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) programs are IT to manage remote endpoints. Attackers have begun to abuse these programs to persist or provide C2 channels.
    https://github.com/jischell-msft/RemoteManagementMonitoringTools
requiredDataConnectors:
- connectorId: MicrosoftThreatProtection
  dataTypes:
  - DeviceProcessEvents
tactics: CommandAndControl
relevantTechniques: T1219
query: |
  let Time_start = now(-5d);
  let Time_end = now();
  //
  DeviceProcessEvents 
  | where Timestamp between (Time_start..Time_end)
  | where ProcessVersionInfoCompanyName has 'AweRay'
      and ProcessVersionInfoProductName has 'AweSun'
  | summarize FirstSeen=min(Timestamp), LastSeen=max(Timestamp), 
      Report=make_set(ReportId), Count=count() by DeviceId, DeviceName

Required Data Sources

MITRE ATT&CK Context

• Tactic: CommandAndControl
• Technique: T1219 — T1219

References

• [Source Query](https://github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/blob/main/Hunting Queries/Microsoft 365 Defender/RemoteManagementMonitoring/rmm_AweSun_createproc.yaml)

False Positive Guidance

• Scenario: A system administrator is using AweSun to remotely create a process for a legitimate endpoint management task (e.g., deploying a patch or configuration update).
  Filter/Exclusion: process.parent_process_name == "AweSun.exe" or process.parent_process_path contains "AweSun"

• Scenario: A scheduled job is configured to run a process via AweSun as part of a routine system maintenance task (e.g., log cleanup or software update).
  Filter/Exclusion: process.command_line contains "scheduled_task_id" or process.command_line contains "task_name"

• Scenario: An IT support technician is using AweSun to remotely execute a process on a user’s machine to resolve a software issue (e.g., restarting a service or reinstalling an application).
  Filter/Exclusion: process.user == "ITSupportUser" or process.user contains "IT"

• Scenario: A legitimate monitoring tool (e.g., Nagios or SolarWinds) is configured to use AweSun as a remote management interface to monitor system processes.
  Filter/Exclusion: process.parent_process_name contains "Nagios" or process.parent_process_name contains "SolarWinds"

• Scenario: A system administrator is using AweSun to deploy a new application or service across multiple endpoints, which involves creating processes on remote machines.
  Filter/Exclusion: process.command_line contains "deploy" or "install" or process.command_line contains "setup"