Sigma rule: Suspicious Executable File Creation

Rule

Title

Suspicious Executable File Creation

Status

test

Level

high

Author

frack113

Date

2022-09-05

Modified

2023-12-11

File

rules/windows/file/file_event/file_event_win_susp_executable_creation.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detect creation of suspicious executable file names.
Some strings look for suspicious file extensions, others look for filenames that exploit unquoted service paths.

Log source

product

windows

category

file_event

Detection

selection:
    TargetFilename|endswith:
        - ':\$Recycle.Bin.exe'
        - ':\Documents and Settings.exe'
        - ':\MSOCache.exe'
        - ':\PerfLogs.exe'
        - ':\Recovery.exe'
        - '.bat.exe'
        - '.sys.exe'
condition: selection

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Unknown

Tags

• attack.stealth
• attack.t1564

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1564

References

• https://medium.com/@SumitVerma101/windows-privilege-escalation-part-1-unquoted-service-path-c7a011a8d8ae
• https://app.any.run/tasks/76c69e2d-01e8-49d9-9aea-fb7cc0c4d3ad/

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/file/file_event/file_event_win_susp_executable_creation.yml