UAC Disabled

Hunt Hypothesis

Detects when an attacker tries to disable User Account Control (UAC) by setting the registry value “EnableLUA” to 0.

Detection Rule

Sigma (Original)

title: UAC Disabled
id: 48437c39-9e5f-47fb-af95-3d663c3f2919
related:
    - id: c5f6a85d-b647-40f7-bbad-c10b66bab038
      type: similar
    - id: 0d7ceeef-3539-4392-8953-3dc664912714
      type: similar
status: stable
description: |
    Detects when an attacker tries to disable User Account Control (UAC) by setting the registry value "EnableLUA" to 0.
references:
    - https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/7e11e9b79583545f208a6dc3fa062f2ed443d999/atomics/T1548.002/T1548.002.md
author: frack113
date: 2022-01-05
modified: 2024-05-10
tags:
    - attack.privilege-escalation
    - attack.t1548.002
logsource:
    category: registry_set
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        TargetObject|contains: '\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA'
        Details: 'DWORD (0x00000000)'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: medium

KQL (Azure Sentinel)

imRegistry
| where RegistryKey contains "\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System\\EnableLUA" and RegistryValueData =~ "DWORD (0x00000000)"

KQL (Microsoft 365 Defender)

DeviceRegistryEvents
| where RegistryKey contains "\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System\\EnableLUA" and RegistryValueData =~ "DWORD (0x00000000)"

Required Data Sources

False Positive Guidance

• Scenario: System Update or Group Policy Change
  A system administrator manually disables UAC

MITRE ATT&CK Context

• Tactic: Privilege Escalation
• Technique: T1548.002 — T1548.002

References

• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/7e11e9b79583545f208a6dc3fa062f2ed443d999/atomics/T1548.002/T1548.002.md
• SigmaHQ Rule