EventID 2004: Firewall Rule Added

This event indicates that a new firewall rule has been added to the Windows Firewall.

In recent builds of Windows 11, this event has been replaced by a new Event ID:

EventID 2071: Firewall Rule Added

Analysis Value

Security IdentifierFile PathExecution AccountParent and Child InformationEvidence of ExecutionFirewall Activity

Operating System Availability

Major Version
Support
Major Version
Support

Windows 11

⚠️

Server 2019

✅

Windows 10

✅

Server 2016

✅

Windows 8

✅

Server 2012

✅

Windows 7

✅

Server 2008

✅

Windows Vista

✅

Server 2003

❌

Windows XP

❌

Artifact Location(s)

  • %SystemRoot%\System32\Winevt\Logs\Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security%4Firewall.evtx

Artifact Interpretation

Field
Interpretation
Reference

System/Security/UserID

Provides the Security Identifier (SID) of the account that added the new firewall rule.

Security Identifier

EventData/ModifyingUser

Provides the Security Identifier (SID) of the account that added the new firewall rule.

Security Identifier

EventData/ModifyingApplication

Provides the full image path of the process that added the new firewall rule.

File Path

System/Execution/ProcessID

Provides the Process ID of the application that created the new firewall rule.

Parent and Child Information

System/Execution/ThreadID

Provides the Thread ID of the application that created the new firewall rule.

Parent and Child Information

The presence of this event indicates that the system's firewall was modified by adding a new rule. This may be indicative of attacker activity. There are many legitimate processes such as svchost.exe that will be observed modifying the Windows Firewall, so this event should be correlated with others to determine if the activity is legitimate or not.

The following additional fields are available in this event:

XML Path
Interpretation

EventData/RuleId

A GUID for the new firewall rule

EventData/RuleName

The name for the firewall rule as it appears in the Windows Firewall

EventData/Direction

1 for inbound rules and 2 for outbound rules

EventData/Profiles

What profiles (Private/Domain/Public) this rule applies to.

EventData/Active

0 for disabled rules and 1 for enabled rules

EventData/Action

3 for allow and 2 for block

EventData/SecurityOptions

0 for none and 1 for require authentication

EventData/ApplicationPath

If the rule applies only to a specific application it will be listed here

EventData/ServiceName

If the rule applies only to a specific service it will be listed here

Example - Windows 10

On an example system, a new Windows Firewall rule was added from the command line, causing the following event to be logged:

- 
<Event
	xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
-   <System>
		<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security" Guid="{d1bc9aff-2abf-4d71-9146-ecb2a986eb85}" />
		<EventID>2004</EventID>
		<Version>0</Version>
		<Level>4</Level>
		<Task>0</Task>
		<Opcode>0</Opcode>
		<Keywords>0x8000020000000000</Keywords>
		<TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-05-04T17:01:45.8409961Z" />
		<EventRecordID>6661</EventRecordID>
		<Correlation />
		<Execution ProcessID="2352" ThreadID="19044" />
		<Channel>Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security/Firewall</Channel>
		<Computer>HLPC01</Computer>
		<Security UserID="S-1-5-19" />
	</System>
-   <EventData>
		<Data Name="RuleId">{8736B31E-8792-452E-8D2D-C45621F236AF}</Data>
		<Data Name="RuleName">Open SSH Port 22</Data>
		<Data Name="Origin">1</Data>
		<Data Name="ApplicationPath" />
		<Data Name="ServiceName" />
		<Data Name="Direction">1</Data>
		<Data Name="Protocol">6</Data>
		<Data Name="LocalPorts">22</Data>
		<Data Name="RemotePorts">*</Data>
		<Data Name="Action">3</Data>
		<Data Name="Profiles">2147483647</Data>
		<Data Name="LocalAddresses">*</Data>
		<Data Name="RemoteAddresses">*</Data>
		<Data Name="RemoteMachineAuthorizationList" />
		<Data Name="RemoteUserAuthorizationList" />
		<Data Name="EmbeddedContext" />
		<Data Name="Flags">1</Data>
		<Data Name="Active">1</Data>
		<Data Name="EdgeTraversal">0</Data>
		<Data Name="LooseSourceMapped">0</Data>
		<Data Name="SecurityOptions">0</Data>
		<Data Name="ModifyingUser">S-1-5-21-3471133136-2963561160-3931775028-1001</Data>
		<Data Name="ModifyingApplication">C:\Windows\System32\netsh.exe</Data>
		<Data Name="SchemaVersion">542</Data>
		<Data Name="RuleStatus">65536</Data>
		<Data Name="LocalOnlyMapped">0</Data>
	</EventData>
</Event>

This example was produced on Windows 10, Version 10.0.19044 Build 19044

The following command was executed to create the new firewall rule:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Open SSH Port 22" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=22 remoteip=any

Example - Windows 11

The same command, when executed on a Windows 11 system, results in the following event being logged:

- 
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
-   <System>
		<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security" Guid="{d1bc9aff-2abf-4d71-9146-ecb2a986eb85}" />
		<EventID>2071</EventID>
		<Version>0</Version>
		<Level>4</Level>
		<Task>0</Task>
		<Opcode>0</Opcode>
		<Keywords>0x8000020000000000</Keywords>
		<TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-09-27T01:09:12.7137288Z" />
		<EventRecordID>545</EventRecordID>
		<Correlation />
		<Execution ProcessID="2704" ThreadID="3624" />
		<Channel>Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security/Firewall</Channel>
		<Computer>W11</Computer>
		<Security UserID="S-1-5-19" />
	</System>
-   <EventData>
		<Data Name="RuleId">{0D458E97-4EC5-4C5C-A5A4-F9F73E769168}</Data>
		<Data Name="RuleName">Open SSH Port 22</Data>
		<Data Name="Origin">1</Data>
		<Data Name="ApplicationPath" />
		<Data Name="ServiceName" />
		<Data Name="Direction">1</Data>
		<Data Name="Protocol">6</Data>
		<Data Name="LocalPorts">22</Data>
		<Data Name="RemotePorts">*</Data>
		<Data Name="Action">3</Data>
		<Data Name="Profiles">2147483647</Data>
		<Data Name="LocalAddresses">*</Data>
		<Data Name="RemoteAddresses">*</Data>
		<Data Name="RemoteMachineAuthorizationList" />
		<Data Name="RemoteUserAuthorizationList" />
		<Data Name="EmbeddedContext" />
		<Data Name="Flags">1</Data>
		<Data Name="Active">1</Data>
		<Data Name="EdgeTraversal">0</Data>
		<Data Name="LooseSourceMapped">0</Data>
		<Data Name="SecurityOptions">0</Data>
		<Data Name="ModifyingUser">S-1-5-21-937911350-1118943250-2293061635-1001</Data>
		<Data Name="ModifyingApplication">C:\Windows\System32\netsh.exe</Data>
		<Data Name="SchemaVersion">544</Data>
		<Data Name="RuleStatus">65536</Data>
		<Data Name="LocalOnlyMapped">0</Data>
		<Data Name="ErrorCode">0</Data>
	</EventData>
</Event>

This example was produced on Windows 11, Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621

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