Sigma rule: Suspicious RunAs-Like Flag Combination

Rule

Title

Suspicious RunAs-Like Flag Combination

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)

Date

2022-11-11

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_susp_privilege_escalation_cli_patterns.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects suspicious command line flags that let the user set a target user and command as e.g. seen in PsExec-like tools

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection_user:
    CommandLine|contains:
        - ' -u system '
        - ' --user system '
        - ' -u NT'
        - ' -u "NT'
        - " -u 'NT"
        - ' --system '
        - ' -u administrator '
selection_command:
    CommandLine|contains:
        - ' -c cmd'
        - ' -c "cmd'
        - ' -c powershell'
        - ' -c "powershell'
        - ' --command cmd'
        - ' --command powershell'
        - ' -c whoami'
        - ' -c wscript'
        - ' -c cscript'
condition: all of selection*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Unknown

Tags

• attack.privilege-escalation

References

• https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/22/k/hack-the-real-box-apt41-new-subgroup-earth-longzhi.html

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_privilege_escalation_cli_patterns.yml