Sigma rule: Process Terminated Via Taskkill

Rule

Title

Process Terminated Via Taskkill

Status

test

Level

low

Author

frack113, MalGamy (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali

Date

2021-12-26

Modified

2024-10-06

File

rules-threat-hunting/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_taskkill_execution.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects execution of "taskkill.exe" in order to stop a service or a process. Look for suspicious parents executing this command in order to hunt for potential malicious activity.
Attackers might leverage this in order to conduct data destruction or data encrypted for impact on the data stores of services like Exchange and SQL Server.

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection_img:
    - Image|endswith: '\taskkill.exe'
    - OriginalFileName: 'taskkill.exe'
selection_cli_force:
    - CommandLine|contains|windash: ' /f '
    - CommandLine|endswith|windash: ' /f'
selection_cli_filter_process:
    CommandLine|contains|windash:
        - ' /im '
        - ' /pid '
filter_main_installers:
    ParentImage|contains:
        - '\AppData\Local\Temp\'
        - ':\Windows\Temp'
    ParentImage|endswith: '.tmp'
condition: all of selection_* and not 1 of filter_main_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Expected FP with some processes using this techniques to terminate one of their processes during installations and updates

Tags

• attack.impact
• attack.t1489
• detection.threat-hunting

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1489

References

• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1489/T1489.md#atomic-test-3---windows---stop-service-by-killing-process
• https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/snipbot-romcom-malware-variant/

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/process_creation/proc_creation_win_taskkill_execution.yml