Enhancing Your Logging Capabilities with Sysmon for ransomware/Any type of attack

Why Sysmon?

Sysmon provides detailed information about process creations, network connections, and changes to file creation time. This can be incredibly valuable for security monitoring, incident response, and forensic investigations. Some key features include:

• Process Creation Monitoring: This is essential for tracking the execution of potentially malicious software.

• Network Connection Logging: Captures details about outbound and inbound connections.

• File Creation Time Changes: Helps identify when files were created or modified, aiding in malware detection.

Installation and Configuration

Installing Sysmon is straightforward. You can download Sysmon from Microsoft’s official site, which includes documentation and the executable file.

1. Download Sysmon: Get the Sysmon executable from the link provided.

2. Prepare Configuration File: Download a configuration file (e.g., sysmonconfig-export.xml).

3. Install Sysmon: Execute the following command in the command prompt to install Sysmon with your configuration file
   

sysmon.exe -accepteula -i sysmonconfig-export.xml

This command installs the Sysmon driver and service, which will start logging immediately.

Viewing Sysmon Logs

After installation, Sysmon logs can be found in the Event Viewer under:

Event Viewer (Local) → Applications and Services Logs → Microsoft → Windows → Sysmon → Operational

This location provides easy access to the detailed logs generated by Sysmon.

Recommended Resources

To get the most out of Sysmon, leverage these valuable resources:

1. Michael Hagg’s Sysmon Repository: This GitHub repo contains a wealth of resources and configurations for Sysmon https://github.com/MHaggis/sysmon-dfir
   

2. Ultimate Windows Event Log Configuration Guide: Yamato Security’s guide helps enable specific non-default log types useful for ransomware response: https://github.com/Yamato-Security/EnableWindowsLogSettings

3. Awesome Event IDs: Mathias Stuhlmacher’s curated list of useful event IDs, detailing how to log relevant events: https://github.com/stuhli/awesome-event-ids?tab=readme-ov-file#event-id-databases

Important Logs to Collect

For comprehensive monitoring and threat detection, ensure you are collecting logs from the following sources:

Firewall Logs, VPN Logs, VMware/Citrix Logs, Cloud Logs, Web Logs ,Email Logs ,DNS Logs

, Database Logs

Conclusion

Sysmon helps you monitor, detect, and respond to security threats more effectively. Coupled with the resources and guides mentioned, you can configure Sysmon to meet your specific security needs and improve your overall threat detection and response efforts.

Akash Patel