Sigma rule: Potential Reconnaissance For Cached Credentials Via Cmdkey.EXE
A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-55ceaf9b575b, updated 2024-03-05T00:00:00.000Z.
Rule
- Title
- Potential Reconnaissance For Cached Credentials Via Cmdkey.EXE
- Status
- test
- Level
- high
- Author
- jmallette, Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
- Date
- 2019-01-16
- Modified
- 2024-03-05
- File
- rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_cmdkey_recon.yml
- Commit
- ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84
Detects usage of cmdkey to look for cached credentials on the system
Log source
- product
- windows
- category
- process_creation
Detection
selection_img:
- Image|endswith: '\cmdkey.exe'
- OriginalFileName: 'cmdkey.exe'
selection_cli:
CommandLine|contains|windash: ' -l'
condition: all of selection*False positives (as the rule lists them)
- Legitimate administrative tasks
Tags
- attack.credential-access
- attack.t1003.005
MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names
References
- https://www.peew.pw/blog/2017/11/26/exploring-cmdkey-an-edge-case-for-privilege-escalation
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754243(v=ws.11).aspx
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/b27a3cb25025161d49ac861cb216db68c46a3537/atomics/T1003.005/T1003.005.md#atomic-test-1---cached-credential-dump-via-cmdkey
Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_cmdkey_recon.yml
Sources and licences
SigmaHQ
"Potential Reconnaissance For Cached Credentials Via Cmdkey.EXE" by jmallette, Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_cmdkey_recon.yml.
Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License
Cite this page
Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: Potential Reconnaissance For Cached Credentials Via Cmdkey.EXE",
entity page, dataset version ref-55ceaf9b575b, updated 2024-03-05T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/07f8bdc2-c9b3-472a-9817-5a670b872f53 (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule 07f8bdc2-c9b3-472a-9817-5a670b872f53, commit ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84.
Pages change. The dataset version identifies the data, but no archive of old versions is kept, so this citation cannot be replayed later.