Sigma rule: Potentially Suspicious Child Process Of ClickOnce Application

Rule

Title

Potentially Suspicious Child Process Of ClickOnce Application

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)

Date

2023-06-12

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_dfsvc_suspicious_child_processes.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects potentially suspicious child processes of a ClickOnce deployment application

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection:
    ParentImage|contains: '\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0\'
    Image|endswith:
        # Add more suspicious processes
        - '\calc.exe'
        - '\cmd.exe'
        - '\cscript.exe'
        - '\explorer.exe'
        - '\mshta.exe'
        - '\net.exe'
        - '\net1.exe'
        - '\nltest.exe'
        - '\notepad.exe'
        - '\powershell.exe'
        - '\pwsh.exe'
        - '\reg.exe'
        - '\regsvr32.exe'
        - '\rundll32.exe'
        - '\schtasks.exe'
        - '\werfault.exe'
        - '\wscript.exe'
condition: selection

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Unknown

Tags

• attack.execution
• attack.stealth

References

• https://posts.specterops.io/less-smartscreen-more-caffeine-ab-using-clickonce-for-trusted-code-execution-1446ea8051c5

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_dfsvc_suspicious_child_processes.yml