Sigma rule: Rare Schtasks Creations

A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-8b212fceff00, updated 2023-02-24T00:00:00.000Z.

Rule

Title
Rare Schtasks Creations
Status
unsupported
Level
low
Author
Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
Date
2017/03/23
Modified
2023/02/24
File
unsupported/windows/win_security_rare_schtasks_creations.yml
Commit
ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects rare scheduled tasks creations that only appear a few times per time frame and could reveal password dumpers, backdoor installs or other types of malicious code

Log source

product
windows
service
security
definition
The Advanced Audit Policy setting Object Access > Audit Other Object Access Events has to be configured to allow this detection (not in the baseline recommendations by Microsoft). We also recommend extracting the Command field from the embedded XML in the event data.

Detection

selection:
    EventID: 4698
timeframe: 7d
condition: selection | count() by TaskName < 5

False positives (as the rule lists them)

  • Software installation
  • Software updates

Tags

  • attack.execution
  • attack.privilege_escalation
  • attack.persistence
  • car.2013-08-001
  • attack.t1053.005

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/unsupported/windows/win_security_rare_schtasks_creations.yml

Sources and licences

  • SigmaHQ

    "Rare Schtasks Creations" by Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/unsupported/windows/win_security_rare_schtasks_creations.yml.
    Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License

    Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1

Cite this page

Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: Rare Schtasks Creations",
entity page, dataset version ref-8b212fceff00, updated 2023-02-24T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/b0d77106-7bb0-41fe-bd94-d1752164d066 (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule b0d77106-7bb0-41fe-bd94-d1752164d066, commit ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84.

Pages change. The dataset version identifies the data, but no archive of old versions is kept, so this citation cannot be replayed later.