When using Sysmon to monitor processes in Splunk, you can exclude the chattiest processes that eat away at your license and indexing I/O. Splunk recommends excluding its own Universal Forwarder as well as antivirus products.

1) Splunk’s Sysmon Add-on docs list a few options for the sysmon config file. I used the SwiftOnSecurity template and simply added the UF and McAfee executables.

Splunk Add-on for Sysmon Doc:
https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/MSSysmon/ConfigureSysmon

Ready to run Sysmon config file:
https://github.com/SwiftOnSecurity/sysmon-config

Sysmon:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sysmon

2) Open your Sysmon xml config file with Notepad++ or VSCode. Use Notepad++ or VSCode when editing xml on Windows. They recognize UNIX newline format and XML syntax highlighting so your file will be easier to read. Don’t use Notepad.exe. Under the heading <!–SYSMON EVENT ID 1 : PROCESS CREATION [ProcessCreate]–> enter the text below and save the file.

3) When done editing, reload the active config.

> sysmon -c c:\path\to\your_sysmon_config_file_v2.xml

<!–SECTION: Splunk:Universal Forwarder–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunkd.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: binary that accesses, processes, and indexes streaming data–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\btool.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: cli util used to troubleshoot config file issues–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: the control application for the Windows version of Splunk–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-admon.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs whenever you configure an Active Directory monitoring input–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-perfmon.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you monitor performance data–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-netmon.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you configure Splunk to monitor network information–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-regmon.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you configure a Registry monitoring input–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-winevtlog.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: event log collections, outputs events as they are collected–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-winhostmon</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you configure a Windows host monitoring input–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-winprintmon.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you configure a Windows print monitoring input –>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-wmi.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you configure a performance monitor–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-powershell.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: runs when you configure a PowerShell command or script monitor–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder\bin\splunk-MonitorNoHandle.exe</Image> <!–Splunk:Universal Forwarder: this input monitors files without using Windows file handles.–>
<!–SECTION: McAfee:AntiVirus–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\Platform\Core\mchost.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\Platform\CommonBuild\McCBEntAndInstru.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\Platform\McPltCmd.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\MQS\QcShm.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee.com\Agent\mcupdate.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\MSGSDK\msgrunner.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\TaskScheduler\McAMTaskAgent.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\UPDMGR\8.1.149.1\mcupdatemgr.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\CSP\4.1.106.0\McCSPServiceHost.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\MSC\mcinfo.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\Platform\MSM\McSmtFwk.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\Platform\McUICnt.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\MSC\OOBE\mcocrollback.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\MSC\McInstru.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\UPDMGR\8.1.149.1\mcupdutl.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\DynamicAppDownloader\DADUpdater.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\HackerWatch\hwupdchk.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\MSC\mcsync.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\ChromiumContainer\delegate.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\VUL\McVulCtr.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\VUL\McVulCon.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\MfeAV\MfeAVSvc.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee\CoreUI\Launch.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>
<Image condition=”is”>C:\Program Files\McAfee.com\Agent\mcagent.exe</Image> <!–McAfee:AntiVirus: no description – TBD–>