Sigma rule: Visual Studio Code Tunnel Shell Execution

Rule

Title

Visual Studio Code Tunnel Shell Execution

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)

Date

2023-10-25

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_vscode_tunnel_remote_shell_.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects the execution of a shell (powershell, bash, wsl...) via Visual Studio Code tunnel. Attackers can abuse this functionality to establish a C2 channel and execute arbitrary commands on the system.

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection_parent:
    ParentImage|contains: '\servers\Stable-'
    ParentImage|endswith: '\server\node.exe'
    ParentCommandLine|contains: '.vscode-server' # Technically one can host its own local server instead of using the VsCode one. And that would probably change the name (requires further research)
# Note: Child processes (ie: shells) can be whatever technically (with some efforts)
selection_child_1:
    Image|endswith:
        - '\powershell.exe'
        - '\pwsh.exe'
    CommandLine|contains: '\terminal\browser\media\shellIntegration.ps1'
selection_child_2:
    Image|endswith:
        - '\wsl.exe'
        - '\bash.exe'
condition: selection_parent and 1 of selection_child_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Legitimate use of Visual Studio Code tunnel and running code from there

Tags

• attack.command-and-control
• attack.t1071.001

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1071.001

References

• https://ipfyx.fr/post/visual-studio-code-tunnel/
• https://badoption.eu/blog/2023/01/31/code_c2.html
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/tunnels

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_vscode_tunnel_remote_shell_.yml