Potential Exploitation of CVE-2024-37085 - Suspicious Creation Of ESX Admins Group

title: Potential Exploitation of CVE-2024-37085 - Suspicious Creation Of ESX Admins Group
id: c408acfe-2870-41df-8d2f-9f4daa4555ed
status: test
description: |
    Detects execution of the "net.exe" command in order to add a group named "ESX Admins".
    This could indicates a potential exploitation attempt of CVE-2024-37085, which allows an attacker to elevate their privileges to full administrative access on an domain-joined ESXi hypervisor.
    VMware ESXi hypervisors joined to an Active Directory domain consider any member of a domain group named "ESX Admins" to have full administrative access by default.
references:
    - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/07/29/ransomware-operators-exploit-esxi-hypervisor-vulnerability-for-mass-encryption/
author: frack113
date: 2024-07-29
tags:
    - attack.execution
    - cve.2024-37085
    - detection.emerging-threats
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_net_img:
        - Image|endswith:
              - '\net.exe'
              - '\net1.exe'
        - OriginalFileName:
              - 'net.exe'
              - 'net1.exe'
    selection_net_cmd:
        CommandLine|contains|all:
            - '/add'
            - '/domain'
            - 'ESX Admins'
            - 'group'
    selection_powershell_img:
        - Image|endswith:
              - '\PowerShell.exe'
              - '\pwsh.exe'
        - OriginalFileName:
              - 'PowerShell.exe'
              - 'pwsh.dll'
    selection_powershell_cli:
        CommandLine|contains|all:
            - 'New-ADGroup'
            - 'ESX Admins'
    condition: all of selection_net_* or all of selection_powershell_*
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: high