Suspicious Mshta.EXE Execution Patterns

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About the rule

Rule Type

Standard

Rule Description

Detects suspicious mshta process execution patterns

Severity

Trouble

Rule Requirement

Criteria

Action1: actionname = "Process started" AND ((PROCESSNAME endswith "\mshta.exe" OR ORIGINALFILENAME = "MSHTA.EXE") AND (PARENTPROCESSNAME endswith "\cmd.exe,\cscript.exe,\powershell.exe,\pwsh.exe,\regsvr32.exe,\rundll32.exe,\wscript.exe" AND COMMANDLINE contains "\AppData\Local\,C:\ProgramData\,C:\Users\Public\,C:\Windows\Temp")) OR ((PROCESSNAME endswith "\mshta.exe" OR ORIGINALFILENAME = "MSHTA.EXE") AND (PROCESSNAME notstartswith "C:\Windows\System32\,C:\Windows\SysWOW64" AND COMMANDLINE notcontains ".htm,.hta" AND COMMANDLINE notendswith "mshta.exe,mshta")) select Action1.HOSTNAME,Action1.MESSAGE,Action1.COMMANDLINE,Action1.FILE_NAME,Action1.PROCESSNAME,Action1.USERNAME,Action1.PARENTPROCESSNAME

Detection

Execution Mode

realtime

Log Sources

Windows

Author

Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)