Sigma rule: Local Accounts Discovery

Rule

Title

Local Accounts Discovery

Status

test

Level

low

Author

Timur Zinniatullin, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community

Date

2019-10-21

Modified

2025-10-20

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_susp_local_system_owner_account_discovery.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Local accounts, System Owner/User discovery using operating systems utilities

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection_other_img:
    - Image|endswith:
          - '\whoami.exe'
          - '\quser.exe'
          - '\qwinsta.exe'
    - OriginalFileName:
          - 'whoami.exe'
          - 'quser.exe'
          - 'qwinsta.exe'
selection_other_wmi:
    Image|endswith: '\wmic.exe'
    CommandLine|contains|all:
        - 'useraccount'
        - 'get'
selection_other_cmdkey:
    Image|endswith: '\cmdkey.exe'
    CommandLine|contains: ' /l'
selection_cmd:
    Image|endswith: '\cmd.exe'
    CommandLine|contains|all:
        - ' /c'
        - 'dir '
        - '\Users\'
filter_cmd:
    CommandLine|contains: ' rmdir ' # don't match on 'dir'   "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe" /q /c rmdir /s /q "C:\Users\XX\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\19.232.1124.0005"
selection_net:
    Image|endswith:
        - '\net.exe'
        - '\net1.exe'
    CommandLine|contains: 'user'
filter_net:
    CommandLine|contains:
        - '/domain'       # local account discovery only
        - '/add'          # discovery only
        - '/delete'       # discovery only
        - '/active'       # discovery only
        - '/expires'      # discovery only
        - '/passwordreq'  # discovery only
        - '/scriptpath'   # discovery only
        - '/times'        # discovery only
        - '/workstations' # discovery only
condition: (selection_cmd and not filter_cmd) or (selection_net and not filter_net) or 1 of selection_other_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Legitimate administrator or user enumerates local users for legitimate reason

Tags

• attack.discovery
• attack.t1033
• attack.t1087.001

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1033
• T1087.001

Related rules

• e28a5a99-da44-436d-b7a0-2afc20a5f413 (obsolete)

References

• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1033/T1033.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/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_susp_local_system_owner_account_discovery.yml