Sigma rule: HH.EXE Initiated HTTP Network Connection

Rule

Title

HH.EXE Initiated HTTP Network Connection

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)

Date

2022-10-05

File

rules-threat-hunting/windows/network_connection/net_connection_win_hh_http_connection.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects a network connection initiated by the "hh.exe" process to HTTP destination ports, which could indicate the execution/download of remotely hosted .chm files.

Log source

product

windows

category

network_connection

Detection

selection:
    Image|endswith: '\hh.exe'
    Initiated: 'true'
    DestinationPort:
        - 80
        - 443
condition: selection

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• False positive is expected from launching "hh.exe" for the first time on a machine in a while or simply from help files containing reference to external sources. Best correlate this with process creation and file events.

Tags

• attack.stealth
• attack.t1218.001
• detection.threat-hunting

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1218.001

Related rules

• f57c58b3-ee69-4ef5-9041-455bf39aaa89 (derived)

References

• https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/security/follina-for-protocol-handlers.html
• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/1cf4dd51f83dcb0ebe6ade902d6157ad2dbc6ac8/atomics/T1218.001/T1218.001.md

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules-threat-hunting/windows/network_connection/net_connection_win_hh_http_connection.yml