Adversaries may abuse time providers to execute DLLs when the system boots. The Windows Time service (W32Time) enables time synchronization across and within domains.(Citation: Microsoft W32Time Feb 2018) W32Time time providers are responsible for retrieving time stamps from hardware/network resources and outputting these values to other network clients.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider) Time providers are implemented as dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are registered in the subkeys of `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\`.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider) The time provider manager, directed by the service control manager, loads and starts time providers listed and enabled under this key at system startup and/or whenever parameters are changed.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider) Adversaries may abuse this architecture to establish persistence, specifically by creating a new arbitrarily named subkey pointing to a malicious DLL in the `DllName` value. Administrator privileges are required for time provider registration, though execution will run in context of the Local Service account.(Citation: Github W32Time Oct 2017)

Linked Issues

Issuelinks
Linktype Issue
is related to Techniques
is blocked by Restrict Registry Permissions
is blocked by Detect Abuse of Windows Time Providers for Persistence
is blocked by Restrict File and Directory Permissions
is blocked by Access Restriction For Change
is blocked by Security, Compliance & Resilience Controls Oversight
is blocked by Secure Baseline Configurations
is blocked by Continuous Monitoring
is blocked by Endpoint File Integrity Monitoring (FIM)
is blocked by Access Enforcement
is blocked by Least Privilege
is blocked by Data Flow Enforcement – Access Control Lists (ACLs)
is blocked by Remote Access
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