Detects suspicious sequences where a non-root user launches a high-risk parent process (interpreter, shell one-liner, or execution from user-writable paths) and then quickly executes a common privilege elevation helper (su, sudo, pkexec, passwd, chsh, newgrp) that gains an effective UID of 0 while the real UID remains non-root. This can indicate misuse of SUID/SGID helpers, polkit/sudo abuse, or interactive privilege escalation attempts captured via Auditd Manager telemetry.

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Identifies potentially suspicious use of unshare to create a user namespace context followed by a UID change event indicating a transition to root. Adversaries may use unshare-based primitives as part of local privilege escalation chains. This rule is intentionally generic and can surface multiple local privesc patterns beyond a single CVE.

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Detects a short sequence where a non-root user performs unshare-related namespace activity (often associated with user namespace privilege escalation primitives) and then a root process is executed shortly after. This can indicate a successful local privilege escalation attempt or suspicious namespace manipulation captured in Auditd Manager telemetry.

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Detects when a DNS request is made for an IP lookup service to determine the external IP address of the system via an unsigned or untrusted binary. This is commonly used by malware for reconnaissance before establishing C2 connections.

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Identifies the default Mimikatz MemSSP credential log file, mimilsa.log. This file is created after the misc::memssp module injects a malicious Security Support Provider into LSASS and can contain credentials from subsequent logons to the host.

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Identifies LSASS loading an unsigned or untrusted DLL. Windows Security Support Provider (SSP) DLLs are loaded into LSSAS process at system start. Once loaded into the LSA, SSP DLLs have access to encrypted and plaintext passwords that are stored in Windows, such as any logged-on user's Domain password or smart card PINs.

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Identifies DNS queries to known public IP address lookup web services from suspicious Windows processes, which can reveal external IP or internet-connectivity discovery before follow-on activity.

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Identifies users being added to the admin group. This could be an indication of privilege escalation activity.

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Detects successful Microsoft 365 portal logins from a country and region the user has not previously authenticated from in a specific time window. Atypical regions are identified by combining the user's country and region geolocation history; an authentication from a new country/region pair for that user may indicate an adversary attempting to access the account from an unusual location or behind a VPN.

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Detects successful Microsoft 365 portal logins from impossible travel locations. Impossible travel locations are defined as two different countries within a short time frame. This behavior may indicate an adversary attempting to access a Microsoft 365 account from a compromised account or a malicious actor attempting to access a Microsoft 365 account from a different location.

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Detects creation, modification, or deletion of Kubernetes MutatingWebhookConfigurations or ValidatingWebhookConfigurations by non-system identities. Admission webhooks intercept every API request matching their rules before persistence, giving an attacker powerful capabilities: injecting malicious sidecars into every new pod via a mutating webhook, blocking security tooling deployments via a validating webhook, or silently exfiltrating pod specifications to an external server. Webhook manipulation is a stealthy persistence and defense evasion technique because the webhook configuration itself looks benign in kubectl output while actively modifying or intercepting all matching Kubernetes API traffic.

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Cobalt Strike is a threat emulation platform commonly modified and used by adversaries to conduct network attack and exploitation campaigns. This rule detects a network activity algorithm leveraged by Cobalt Strike implant beacons for command and control.

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Identifies Elasticsearch nodes that do not have Transport Layer Security (TLS), and/or lack authentication, and are accepting inbound network connections over the default Elasticsearch port.

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This rule detects a known command and control pattern in network events. The FIN7 threat group is known to use this command and control technique, while maintaining persistence in their target's network.

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Identifies an executable created by a Microsoft Office application and subsequently executed. These processes are often launched via scripts inside documents or during exploitation of Microsoft Office applications.

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Identifies the Foxmail client spawning a child process with arguments pointing to user-profile AppData paths or remote shares. This may indicate exploitation of a Foxmail vulnerability for initial access and execution via a malicious email.

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Identifies PowerShell script blocks linked to multiple distinct PowerShell detections via the same ScriptBlock ID, indicating compound suspicious behavior. Attackers often chain obfuscation, decoding, and execution within a single script block.

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Identifies a process started by Notepad after opening a Markdown file. This may indicate successful exploitation of a Notepad markdown parsing vulnerability (CVE-2026-20841) that can lead to arbitrary code execution.

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Identifies PowerShell script block content containing known offensive-tool author handles or attribution strings (for example, public tool author names). Attackers often run public PowerShell tooling with minimal changes, leaving author artifacts in comments or headers.

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Identifies suspicious Node.js execution patterns, including user-writable runtimes, preload arguments, and inline eval, decode, or child-process usage.

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Identifies an untrusted driver loaded by the Windows kernel. Adversaries may modify code signing policies to enable execution of unsigned or self-signed kernel code.

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Identifies the execution of a child process from a Microsoft Common Console file. Adversaries may embed a malicious command in an MSC file in order to trick victims into executing malicious commands.

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Identifies the load of a remote library by the WPS Office promecefpluginhost.exe executable. This may indicate the successful exploitation of CVE-2024-7262 or CVE-2024-7263 via DLL hijack abusing the ksoqing custom protocol handler.

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Identifies PowerShell, PowerShell ISE, or Cmd execution spawned from Windows Script Host or MSHTA.

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Detects when the Console Window Host (conhost.exe) process is spawned by a suspicious parent process, which could be indicative of code injection.

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Identifies potential attempt to execute via a reverse shell using the netcat utility to execute Windows commands using the default interpreters like Cmd.exe and Powershell.

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Identifies the execution of Windows commands or downloaded files via the browser's dialog box. Adversaries may use phishing to instruct the victim to copy and paste malicious commands for execution via crafted phishing web pages.

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Identifies potential fake CAPTCHA phishing attacks based on PowerShell, Cmd, or Mshta command-line values. Adversaries employ this technique via compromised websites with browser injects, posing either as fake CAPTCHAs to access the site or as a page loading error requiring a fix to display the page. The victim is instructed to copy and paste a malicious command to the Windows Run dialog box.

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Detects PowerShell script block content containing PSReflect-style helper indicators, such as Add-Win32Type, New-InMemoryModule, or DllImport patterns, that may support dynamic Win32 API invocation from PowerShell.

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Identifies suspicious command execution (cmd) via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on a remote host. This could be indicative of adversary lateral movement.

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Identifies attempts to execute or invoke content from remote WebDAV shares. Adversaries may abuse WebDAV paths, public tunnels, or host@port UNC paths to run tools or scripts while reducing local staging on the victim file system.

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Detects execution of JavaScript via Deno with suspicious command-line patterns (base64, eval, http, or import in a javascript context). Adversaries may abuse Deno to run malicious JavaScript for execution or staging.

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Identifies the execution of the Windows Command Shell process (cmd.exe) with suspicious argument values. This behavior is often observed during malware installation.

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Detects execution of container runtime CLI tools (ctr, crictl, nerdctl) with arguments indicating container creation, command execution inside existing containers, image manipulation, or host filesystem mounting. These tools interact directly with the container runtime socket, bypassing the Kubernetes API server, RBAC authorization, admission webhooks, pod security standards, and Kubernetes audit logging entirely. Attackers with host-level access may use these tools to create privileged ghost containers, exec into other pods to steal service account tokens and secrets, pull attacker-controlled images, and destroy evidence, all while remaining invisible to Kubernetes-level monitoring.

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Detects execution of container runtime CLI tools (ctr, crictl, nerdctl) with arguments indicating container creation, command execution inside existing containers, image manipulation, or host filesystem mounting. These tools interact directly with the container runtime socket, bypassing the Kubernetes API server, RBAC authorization, admission webhooks, pod security standards, and Kubernetes audit logging entirely. Attackers with host-level access may use these tools to create privileged ghost containers, exec into other pods to steal service account tokens and secrets, pull attacker-controlled images, and destroy evidence, all while remaining invisible to Kubernetes-level monitoring.

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Flags Linux process executions whose arguments reference high-value Kubernetes service-account material, kubeconfig or node PKI paths, or common cloud and SSH credential files, when invoked via typical file-reading utilities or from ephemeral directories. Useful for spotting in-cluster and hybrid credential theft early.

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This detection rule identifies the execution of a Linux shell process from a Java JAR application post an incoming network connection. This behavior may indicate reverse shell activity via a Java application.

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Identifies the use of a compression utility to collect known files containing sensitive information, such as credentials and system configurations.

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Detects Kubernetes pod exec sessions whose decoded command line references cloud instance metadata endpoints or equivalent hostnames and paths. Workloads that reach the link-local metadata IP, AWS IMDS paths, GCP computeMetadata, Azure IMDS token routes, or encoded variants are often attempting to harvest role credentials, tokens, or instance attributes from the underlying node or hypervisor boundary. That behavior is high risk in multi-tenant and regulated environments because it can expose short-lived cloud credentials to code running inside a container. The rule classifies a coarse cloud target label and whether the string looks like credential retrieval versus lighter reconnaissance.

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Flags exec into a pod when the URL-decoded command payload resembles reverse-shell or bind-shell one-liners invocation patterns. Legitimate debug sessions sometimes use similar building blocks, but together these patterns align with post-exploitation interactive access and command-and-control.

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Detects Kubernetes pod exec sessions whose decoded command line references high-value host or in-cluster paths and material types: mounted service account or platform tokens, kubelet and control-plane configuration areas, host identity stores, root dot-directories for cloud and kubeconfig material, common private-key and keystore extensions, process environment dumps, and configuration filenames suggestive of embedded secrets. The intent is to catch interactive or scripted access that often precedes lateral movement, privilege escalation, or credential theft from the node or workload boundary. A narrow exclusion ignores benign reads of resolv.conf. The query also labels an access_type bucket to speed triage without altering the detection predicates you validated.

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Detects pod or attach exec API calls where the decoded request query implies curl or wget fetching an https URL. Attackers with permission to exec into workloads often run one-liners to stage tooling, pull scripts or binaries, or exfiltrate data over HTTPS—activity that should be rare compared to shells, debuggers, or expected health checks. The rule decodes the audit requestURI, reconstructs a readable command string from repeated command parameters, and applies noise filters for common cluster health and OIDC/JWKS endpoints so benign automation is less likely to alert.

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Identifies audit events for runc init child processes where the effective user is root and the login user ID is not root. This pattern can indicate privilege escalation or credential separation abuse inside container runtimes, where a process executes with elevated effective privileges while retaining a non-root audit identity.

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Detects network connection attempts to the Kubernetes Kubelet API port (10250/10255) on internal IP ranges from Linux hosts. This rule focuses on common request and scripting utilities (curl, wget, python, node, etc.) and executions from world-writable or ephemeral paths (/tmp, /var/tmp, /dev/shm, /var/run), which are frequently abused during container and cluster lateral movement.

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Detects potential direct Kubelet API access attempts on Linux by identifying process executions whose arguments contain URLs targeting Kubelet ports (10250/10255). Adversaries may probe or access Kubelet endpoints to enumerate pods, fetch logs, or attempt remote execution, which can enable discovery and lateral movement in Kubernetes environments.

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This rule detects potential direct Kubelet access via process arguments. An adversary may need to access the Kubelet API to gain access to the Kubernetes API server or other resources within the cluster. These requests are often used to enumerate or execute commands on the Kubernetes API server or other resources within the cluster, and may indicate an attempt to move laterally within the cluster.

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Detects the execution of kubeletctl on Linux hosts. Kubeletctl is a command-line tool that can be used to interact with the Kubelet API directly, simplifying access to Kubelet endpoints that can be used for discovery and, in some cases, lateral movement within Kubernetes environments.

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This rule detects the execution of kubeletctl inside a container. Kubeletctl is a command-line tool that can be used to interact with the Kubelet API directly. It allows easy access to this API, making the often undocumented Kubelet API more accessible. It is often used to enumerate the Kubelet API or other resources inside the container, and may indicate an attempt to move laterally within the pod.

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Indicates the creation of a scheduled task using Windows event logs. Adversaries can use these to establish persistence, move laterally, and/or escalate privileges.

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Identify access to sensitive Active Directory object attributes that contains credentials and decryption keys such as unixUserPassword, ms-PKI-AccountCredentials and msPKI-CredentialRoamingTokens.

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Detects the creation and modification of an account with the "Don't Expire Password" option Enabled. Attackers can abuse this misconfiguration to persist in the domain and maintain long-term access using compromised accounts with this property.

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Identifies when the SYSTEM account uses an account discovery utility. This could be a sign of discovery activity after an adversary has achieved privilege escalation.

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Identifies an attempt to reset a potentially privileged account password remotely. Adversaries may manipulate account passwords to maintain access or evade password duration policies and preserve compromised credentials.

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This rule detects the use of ADExplorer utility. Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. Adversaries may abuse this utility to perform domain reconnaissance.

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Identifies a user being added to an active directory group by the SYSTEM (S-1-5-18) user. This behavior can indicate that the attacker has achieved SYSTEM privileges in a domain controller, which attackers can obtain by exploiting vulnerabilities or abusing default group privileges (e.g., Server Operators), and is attempting to pivot to a domain account.

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Adversaries can add the 'hidden' attribute to files to hide them from the user in an attempt to evade detection.

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This rule detects the Active Directory query tool, AdFind.exe. AdFind has legitimate purposes, but it is frequently leveraged by threat actors to perform post-exploitation Active Directory reconnaissance. The AdFind tool has been observed in Trickbot, Ryuk, Maze, and FIN6 campaigns. For Winlogbeat, this rule requires Sysmon.

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Identifies the creation of an Alternate Data Stream (ADS) at a volume root directory, which can indicate the attempt to hide tools and malware, as ADSs created in this directory are not displayed by system utilities.

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Detects the execution of the VScode portable binary with the tunnel command line option indicating an attempt to establish a remote tunnel session to Github or a remote VScode instance.

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Detects use of wbadmin.exe to delete backup catalogs, system state backups, or other backup data. Ransomware and other malware may do this to prevent system recovery.

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Identifies the install of browser extensions. Malicious browser extensions can be installed via app store downloads masquerading as legitimate extensions, social engineering, or by an adversary that has already compromised a system.

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Identifies when a user attempts to clear console history. An adversary may clear the command history of a compromised account to conceal the actions undertaken during an intrusion.

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Identifies attempts to clear or disable Windows event log stores using Windows wevetutil command. This is often done by attackers in an attempt to evade detection or destroy forensic evidence on a system.

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Identifies attempts to disable/modify the code signing policy through system native utilities. Code signing provides authenticity on a program, and grants the user with the ability to check whether the program has been tampered with. By allowing the execution of unsigned or self-signed code, threat actors can craft and execute malicious code.

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Identifies attempts to disable the code signing policy through the registry. Code signing provides authenticity on a program, and grants the user with the ability to check whether the program has been tampered with. By allowing the execution of unsigned or self-signed code, threat actors can craft and execute malicious code.

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Detects attempts to execute a command via the forfiles Windows utility. Adversaries may use this utility to proxy execution via a trusted parent process.

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A suspicious SolarWinds child process (Cmd.exe or Powershell.exe) was detected.

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Identifies command shell activity started via RunDLL32, which is commonly abused by attackers to host malicious code.

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Identifies Component Object Model (COM) hijacking via registry modification. Adversaries may establish persistence by executing malicious content triggered by hijacked references to COM objects.

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Identifies unusual processes connecting to domains using known free SSL certificates. Adversaries may employ a known encryption algorithm to conceal command and control traffic.

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Adversaries may implement command and control (C2) communications that use common web services to hide their activity. This attack technique is typically targeted at an organization and uses web services common to the victim network, which allows the adversary to blend into legitimate traffic activity. These popular services are typically targeted since they have most likely been used before compromise, which helps malicious traffic blend in.

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Active Directory Integrated DNS (ADIDNS) is one of the core components of AD DS, leveraging AD's access control and replication to maintain domain consistency. It stores DNS zones as AD objects, a feature that, while robust, introduces some security issues because of the default permission (Any authenticated users) to create DNS-named records. Attackers can perform Dynamic Spoofing attacks, where they monitor LLMNR/NBT-NS requests and create DNS-named records to target systems that are requested from multiple systems. They can also create specific records to target specific services, such as wpad, for spoofing attacks.

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Detects the creation or modification of a new Group Policy based scheduled task or service. These methods are used for legitimate system administration, but can also be abused by an attacker with domain admin permissions to execute a malicious payload remotely on all or a subset of the domain joined machines.

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Identifies the creation or modification of a local trusted root certificate in Windows. The install of a malicious root certificate would allow an attacker the ability to masquerade malicious files as valid signed components from any entity (for example, Microsoft). It could also allow an attacker to decrypt SSL traffic.

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Identifies the execution of commonly abused Windows utilities via a delayed Ping execution. This behavior is often observed during malware installation and is consistent with an attacker attempting to evade detection.

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Identifies use of the fsutil.exe to delete the volume USNJRNL. This technique is used by attackers to eliminate evidence of files created during post-exploitation activities.

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Detects writing executable files that will be automatically launched by Adobe on launch.

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Identifies registry write modifications to hide an encoded portable executable. This could be indicative of adversary defense evasion by avoiding the storing of malicious content directly on disk.

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Detects attempts to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities related to the Print Spooler service. For more information refer to the following CVE's - CVE-2020-1048, CVE-2020-1337 and CVE-2020-1300 and verify that the impacted system is patched.

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Identifies attempts to disable EventLog via the logman Windows utility, PowerShell, or auditpol. This is often done by attackers in an attempt to evade detection on a system.

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Identifies use of the netsh.exe to disable or weaken the local firewall. Attackers will use this command line tool to disable the firewall during troubleshooting or to enable network mobility.

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User Account Control (UAC) can help mitigate the impact of malware on Windows hosts. With UAC, apps and tasks always run in the security context of a non-administrator account, unless an administrator specifically authorizes administrator-level access to the system. This rule identifies registry value changes to bypass User Access Control (UAC) protection.

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Identifies use of the Set-MpPreference or Add-MpPreference PowerShell commands to disable or weaken certain Windows Defender settings, including detection of base64-encoded variants used to bypass command-line inspection.

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Identifies changes to the DNS Global Query Block List (GQBL), a security feature that prevents the resolution of certain DNS names often exploited in attacks like WPAD spoofing. Attackers with certain privileges, such as DNSAdmins, can modify or disable the GQBL, allowing exploitation of hosts running WPAD with default settings for privilege escalation and lateral movement.

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Identifies when a user enables DNS-over-HTTPS. This can be used to hide internet activity or the process of exfiltrating data. With this enabled, an organization will lose visibility into data such as query type, response, and originating IP, which are used to determine bad actors.

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Identifies .lnk shortcut file downloaded from outside the local network. These shortcut files are commonly used in phishing campaigns.

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Identifies .url shortcut files downloaded from outside the local network. These shortcut files are commonly used in phishing campaigns.

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Identifies use of the netsh.exe program to enable host discovery via the network. Attackers can use this command-line tool to weaken the host firewall settings.

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Identifies the use of WinRAR or 7-Zip to create encrypted archives. Adversaries often compress and encrypt data in preparation for exfiltration.

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Identifies the use of dsquery.exe for domain trust discovery purposes. Adversaries may use this command-line utility to enumerate trust relationships that may be used for Lateral Movement opportunities in Windows multi-domain forest environments.

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Identifies the use of nltest.exe for domain trust discovery purposes. Adversaries may use this command-line utility to enumerate domain trusts and gain insight into trust relationships, as well as the state of Domain Controller (DC) replication in a Microsoft Windows NT Domain.

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Identifies native Windows host and network enumeration commands spawned by the Windows Management Instrumentation Provider Service (WMIPrvSE).

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Identifies instances of lower privilege accounts enumerating Administrator accounts or groups using built-in Windows tools.

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Identifies instances of an unusual process enumerating built-in Windows privileged local groups membership like Administrators or Remote Desktop users.

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Masquerading can allow an adversary to evade defenses and better blend in with the environment. One way it occurs is when the name or location of a file is manipulated as a means of tricking a user into executing what they think is a benign file type but is actually executable code.

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Identifies process execution from a removable media and by an unusual process. Adversaries may move onto systems, possibly those on disconnected or air-gapped networks, by copying malware to removable media and taking advantage of Autorun features when the media is inserted into a system and executes.

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Identifies process execution from suspicious default Windows directories. This may be abused by adversaries to hide malware in trusted paths.

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Identifies the creation of a Windows script downloaded from the internet followed by the execution of a scripting utility. Adversaries may use Windows script files for initial access and execution.

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Windows Component Object Model (COM) is an inter-process communication (IPC) component of the native Windows application programming interface (API) that enables interaction between software objects or executable code. Xwizard can be used to run a COM object created in registry to evade defensive counter measures.

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Identifies execution of suspicious persistent programs (scripts, rundll32, etc.) by looking at process lineage and command line usage.

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Identifies the creation, change, or deletion of a DLL module within a Windows SxS local folder. Adversaries may abuse shared modules to execute malicious payloads by instructing the Windows module loader to load DLLs from arbitrary local paths.

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Identifies execution via MSSQL xp_cmdshell stored procedure. Malicious users may attempt to elevate their privileges by using xp_cmdshell, which is disabled by default, thus, it's important to review the context of it's use.

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An adversary can use the Windows command line debugging utility cdb.exe to execute commands or shellcode. This rule looks for those instances and where the cdb.exe binary is outside of the normal WindowsKit installation paths.

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Detects attempts to execute a program on the host from the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Adversaries may enable and use WSL for Linux to avoid detection.

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Identifies an attempt to load a revoked or expired driver. Adversaries may bring outdated drivers with vulnerabilities to gain code execution in kernel mode or abuse revoked certificates to sign their drivers.

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Identifies the use of the Exchange PowerShell cmdlet, New-MailBoxExportRequest, to export the contents of a primary mailbox or archive to a .pst file. Adversaries may target user email to collect sensitive information.

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Identifies the creation or execution of files or processes with names containing the Right-to-Left Override (RTLO) character, which can be used to disguise the file extension and trick users into executing malicious files.

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Detects DNS queries to commonly abused remote monitoring and management (RMM) or remote access software domains from processes that are not browsers. Intended to surface RMM clients, scripts, or other non-browser activity contacting these services.

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Identifies the load of a driver with an original file name and signature values that were observed for the first time during the last 30 days. This rule type can help baseline drivers installation within your environment.

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Identifies a new credentials logon type performed by an unusual process. This may indicate the existence of an access token forging capability that are often abused to bypass access control restrictions.

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Adversaries may install legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools or remote access software on compromised endpoints for command-and-control (C2), persistence, and execution of native commands. This rule detects when a process is started whose name or code signature (or whose parent's name or code signature) resembles commonly abused RMM/remote access tools, including first-time-seen child processes of such tools. New Terms type: host has not seen this process (or child-of-RMM pattern) before within the configured history window.

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Identifies newly seen removable devices by device friendly name using registry modification events. While this activity is not inherently malicious, analysts can use those events to aid monitoring for data exfiltration over those devices.

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Identifies the enable of the full user-mode dumps feature system-wide. This feature allows Windows Error Reporting (WER) to collect data after an application crashes. This setting is a requirement for the LSASS Shtinkering attack, which fakes the communication of a crash on LSASS, generating a dump of the process memory, which gives the attacker access to the credentials present on the system without having to bring malware to the system. This setting is not enabled by default, and applications must create their registry subkeys to hold settings that enable them to collect dumps.

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Detects the usage of gpresult.exe to query group policy objects. Attackers may query group policy objects during the reconnaissance phase after compromising a system to gain a better understanding of the active directory environment and possible methods to escalate privileges or move laterally.

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This rule identifies a high number (10) of process terminations (stop, delete, or suspend) from the same host within a short time period.

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Detects file creation and modification on the host system from the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Adversaries may enable and use WSL to avoid detection.

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The Debugger and SilentProcessExit registry keys can allow an adversary to intercept the execution of files, causing a different process to be executed. This functionality can be abused by an adversary to establish persistence.

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Identifies abuse of the Windows Update Auto Update Client (wuauclt.exe) to load an arbitrary DLL. This behavior is used as a defense evasion technique to blend-in malicious activity with legitimate Windows software.

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Identifies use of Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) to run commands from a remote host, which are launched via the ShellBrowserWindow or ShellWindows Application COM Object. This behavior may indicate an attacker abusing a DCOM application to stealthily move laterally.

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Identifies remote execution via Windows PowerShell remoting. Windows PowerShell remoting allows a user to run any Windows PowerShell command on one or more remote computers. This could be an indication of lateral movement.

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Identifies remote execution via Windows Remote Management (WinRM) remote shell on a target host. This could be an indication of lateral movement.

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Identifies downloads of executable and archive files via the Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). Adversaries could leverage Windows BITS transfer jobs to download remote payloads.

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Identifies the installation of custom Application Compatibility Shim databases. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.

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Identifies registry modifications related to the Windows Security Support Provider (SSP) configuration. Adversaries may abuse this to establish persistence in an environment.

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Identifies InstallUtil.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity as InstallUtil is often leveraged by adversaries to execute code and evade detection.

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Identifies the modification of an account's Kerberos pre-authentication options. An adversary with GenericWrite/GenericAll rights over the account can maliciously modify these settings to perform offline password cracking attacks such as AS-REP roasting.

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Identifies network connections to the standard Kerberos port from an unusual process. On Windows, the only process that normally performs Kerberos traffic from a domain joined host is lsass.exe.

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Identifies registry modification to the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy policy. If this value exists (which doesn't by default) and is set to 1, then remote connections from all local members of Administrators are granted full high-integrity tokens during negotiation.

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Indicates the creation of a scheduled task. Adversaries can use these to establish persistence, move laterally, and/or escalate privileges.

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Identifies handle requests for the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) object access with specific access masks that many tools with a capability to dump memory to disk use (0x1fffff, 0x1010, 0x120089). This rule is tool agnostic as it has been validated against a host of various LSASS dump tools such as SharpDump, Procdump, Mimikatz, Comsvcs etc. It detects this behavior at a low level and does not depend on a specific tool or dump file name.

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Identifies access attempts to the LSASS handle, which may indicate an attempt to dump credentials from LSASS memory.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, started a PowerShell script or the Visual C# Command Line Compiler. This technique is sometimes used to deploy a malicious payload using the Build Engine.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started by a script or the Windows command interpreter. This behavior is unusual and is sometimes used by malicious payloads.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started by Explorer or the WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) subsystem. This behavior is unusual and is sometimes used by malicious payloads.

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An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started after being renamed. This is uncommon behavior and may indicate an attempt to run unnoticed or undetected.

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Identifies suspicious processes being spawned by the Microsoft Exchange Server Unified Messaging (UM) service. This activity has been observed exploiting CVE-2021-26857.

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Identifies suspicious files being written by the Microsoft Exchange Server Unified Messaging (UM) service. This activity has been observed exploiting CVE-2021-26858.

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Identifies the Internet Information Services (IIS) command-line tool, AppCmd, being used to dump sensitive configuration data such as application pool credentials. An attacker with IIS web server access via a web shell can extract service account passwords by requesting full configuration output or targeting credential-related fields.

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Identifies attempts to open a Microsoft Management Console File from untrusted paths. Adversaries may use MSC files for initial access and execution.

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Identifies when one or more features on Microsoft Defender are disabled. Adversaries may disable or tamper with Microsoft Defender features to evade detection and conceal malicious behavior.

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Identifies use of bcdedit.exe to delete boot configuration data. This tactic is sometimes used as by malware or an attacker as a destructive technique.

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Identify the modification of the msPKIAccountCredentials attribute in an Active Directory User Object. Attackers can abuse the credentials roaming feature to overwrite an arbitrary file for privilege escalation. ms-PKI-AccountCredentials contains binary large objects (BLOBs) of encrypted credential objects from the credential manager store, private keys, certificates, and certificate requests.

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Managed Object Format (MOF) files can be compiled locally or remotely through mofcomp.exe. Attackers may leverage MOF files to build their own namespaces and classes into the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) repository, or establish persistence using WMI Event Subscription.

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Identifies the use of net.exe to mount a WebDav or hidden remote share. This may indicate lateral movement or preparation for data exfiltration.

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Microsoft Office Products offer options for users and developers to control the security settings for running and using Macros. Adversaries may abuse these security settings to modify the default behavior of the Office Application to trust future macros and/or disable security warnings, which could increase their chances of establishing persistence.

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Identifies MsBuild.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity as MsBuild is often leveraged by adversaries to execute code and evade detection.

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Identifies Mshta.exe making outbound network connections. This may indicate adversarial activity, as Mshta is often leveraged by adversaries to execute malicious scripts and evade detection.

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Identifies the execution of an MsiExec service child process followed by network or dns lookup activity. Adversaries may abuse Windows Installers for initial access and delivery of malware.

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Identifies multiple logon failures followed by a successful one from the same source address. Adversaries will often brute force login attempts across multiple users with a common or known password, in an attempt to gain access to accounts.

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Identifies multiple consecutive logon failures from the same source address and within a short time interval. Adversaries will often brute force login attempts across multiple users with a common or known password, in an attempt to gain access to accounts.

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Identifies a Windows host where two or more distinct remote monitoring and management (RMM) or remote-access tool vendors are observed starting processes within the same eight-minute window. Legitimate MSP environments may run multiple tools, but this pattern can also indicate compromise, shadow IT, or attacker staging of redundant access. Processes are mapped to a single vendor label so multiple binaries from the same vendor do not inflate the count.

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Identifies the addition of a Netsh Helper DLL, netsh.exe supports the addition of these DLLs to extend its functionality. Attackers may abuse this mechanism to execute malicious payloads every time the utility is executed, which can be done by administrators or a scheduled task.

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Compiled HTML files (.chm) are commonly distributed as part of the Microsoft HTML Help system. Adversaries may conceal malicious code in a CHM file and deliver it to a victim for execution. CHM content is loaded by the HTML Help executable program (hh.exe).

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Identifies msxsl.exe making a network connection. This may indicate adversarial activity as msxsl.exe is often leveraged by adversaries to execute malicious scripts and evade detection.

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Identifies the native Windows tools regsvr32.exe, regsvr64.exe, RegSvcs.exe, or RegAsm.exe making a network connection. This may be indicative of an attacker bypassing allowlists or running arbitrary scripts via a signed Microsoft binary.

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Binaries signed with trusted digital certificates can execute on Windows systems protected by digital signature validation. Adversaries may use these binaries to 'live off the land' and execute malicious files that could bypass application allowlists and signature validation.

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Identifies the modification of the network logon provider registry. Adversaries may register a rogue network logon provider module for persistence and/or credential access via intercepting the authentication credentials in clear text during user logon.

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Identifies the attempt to disable Network-Level Authentication (NLA) via registry modification. Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a feature on Windows that provides an extra layer of security for Remote Desktop (RDP) connections, as it requires users to authenticate before allowing a full RDP session. Attackers can disable NLA to enable persistence methods that require access to the Windows sign-in screen without authenticating, such as Accessibility Features persistence methods, like Sticky Keys.

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Identifies the use of the Exchange PowerShell cmdlet, Set-CASMailbox, to add a new ActiveSync allowed device. Adversaries may target user email to collect sensitive information.

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Identifies the execution of wbadmin to access the NTDS.dit file in a domain controller. Attackers with privileges from groups like Backup Operators can abuse the utility to perform credential access and compromise the domain.

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Identifies NullSessionPipe registry modifications that specify which pipes can be accessed anonymously. This could be indicative of adversary lateral movement preparation by making the added pipe available to everyone.

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Identifies the modification of the Microsoft Office "Office Test" Registry key, a registry location that can be used to specify a DLL which will be executed every time an MS Office application is started. Attackers can abuse this to gain persistence on a compromised host.

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Identifies the PowerShell process loading the Task Scheduler COM DLL followed by an outbound RPC network connection within a short time period. This may indicate lateral movement or remote discovery via scheduled tasks.

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Identifies use of the Windows file system utility (fsutil.exe) to gather information about attached peripheral devices and components connected to a computer system.

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Identifies when the Windows installer process msiexec.exe creates a new persistence entry via scheduled tasks or startup.

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An adversary can use the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) SetNotifyCmdLine method to execute a program that runs after a job finishes transferring data or after a job enters a specified state in order to persist on a system.

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Detects attempts to establish persistence on an endpoint by installing a rogue Microsoft Outlook VBA Template.

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Identifies the creation or modification of a PowerShell profile. PowerShell profile is a script that is executed when PowerShell starts to customize the user environment, which can be abused by attackers to persist in a environment where PowerShell is common.

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A job can be used to schedule programs or scripts to be executed at a specified date and time. Adversaries may abuse task scheduling functionality to facilitate initial or recurring execution of malicious code.

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An adversary can use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to install event filters, providers, consumers, and bindings that execute code when a defined event occurs. Adversaries may use the capabilities of WMI to subscribe to an event and execute arbitrary code when that event occurs, providing persistence on a system.

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Identifies script engines creating files in the Startup folder, or the creation of script files in the Startup folder. Adversaries may abuse this technique to maintain persistence in an environment.

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Identifies the creation of a new port forwarding rule. An adversary may abuse this technique to bypass network segmentation restrictions.

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Identifies a user account that normally logs in with high volume from one source IP suddenly logging in from a different source IP. This pattern (one IP with many successful logons, another IP with very few) may indicate account takeover or use of stolen credentials from a new location.

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Identifies a user account (often a service account) that normally logs in with high volume using one logon type suddenly showing successful logons using a different logon type with low count. This pattern may indicate account takeover or use of stolen credentials from a new context (e.g. interactive or network logon where only batch/service was expected).

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Identifies the modification of the nTSecurityDescriptor attribute in a domain object with rights related to DCSync to a user/computer account. Attackers can use this backdoor to re-obtain access to hashes of any user/computer.

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The Application Shim was created to allow for backward compatibility of software as the operating system codebase changes over time. This Windows functionality has been abused by attackers to stealthily gain persistence and arbitrary code execution in legitimate Windows processes.

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Identifies instances of Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe) being started via the Component Object Model (COM) making unusual network connections. Adversaries could abuse Internet Explorer via COM to avoid suspicious processes making network connections and bypass host-based firewall restrictions.

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Identifies potential relay activities against a Computer account by identifying authentication events using the computer account coming from from hosts other than the server that owns the account. Attackers may relay the computer account hash after capturing it using forced authentication.

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This rule identifies when a User Account starts the Active Directory Replication Process. Attackers can use the DCSync technique to get credential information of individual accounts or the entire domain, thus compromising the entire domain.

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Identifies suspicious access to an LSASS handle via DuplicateHandle from an unknown call trace module. This may indicate an attempt to bypass the NtOpenProcess API to evade detection and dump LSASS memory for credential access.

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