Sigma rule: Suspect Svchost Activity

A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-caf17eac8559, updated 2022-06-27T00:00:00.000Z.

Rule

Title: Suspect Svchost Activity
Status: test
Level: high
Author: David Burkett, @signalblur
Date: 2019-12-28
Modified: 2022-06-27
File: rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_svchost_execution_with_no_cli_flags.yml
Commit: ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

It is extremely abnormal for svchost.exe to spawn without any CLI arguments and is normally observed when a malicious process spawns the process and injects code into the process memory space.

Log source

product: windows
category: process_creation

Detection

selection:
    CommandLine|endswith: 'svchost.exe'
    Image|endswith: '\svchost.exe'
filter:
    - ParentImage|endswith:
          - '\rpcnet.exe'
          - '\rpcnetp.exe'
    - CommandLine: null  # no CommandLine value available
condition: selection and not filter

False positives (as the rule lists them)

Rpcnet.exe / rpcnetp.exe which is a lojack style software. https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-14/materials/us-14-Kamlyuk-Kamluk-Computrace-Backdoor-Revisited.pdf

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

T1055

References

https://web.archive.org/web/20180718061628/https://securitybytes.io/blue-team-fundamentals-part-two-windows-processes-759fe15965e2

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_svchost_execution_with_no_cli_flags.yml

Sources and licences

SigmaHQ
"Suspect Svchost Activity" by David Burkett, @signalblur (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_svchost_execution_with_no_cli_flags.yml.
Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License
Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1

Cite this page

Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: Suspect Svchost Activity",
entity page, dataset version ref-caf17eac8559, updated 2022-06-27T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/16c37b52-b141-42a5-a3ea-bbe098444397 (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule 16c37b52-b141-42a5-a3ea-bbe098444397, 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.