Sigma rule: Suspicious Provlaunch.EXE Child Process

Rule

Title

Suspicious Provlaunch.EXE Child Process

Status

test

Level

high

Author

Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)

Date

2023-08-08

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_provlaunch_susp_child_process.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects suspicious child processes of "provlaunch.exe" which might indicate potential abuse to proxy execution.

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection_parent:
    ParentImage|endswith: '\provlaunch.exe'
selection_child:
    - Image|endswith:
          - '\calc.exe'
          - '\cmd.exe'
          - '\cscript.exe'
          - '\mshta.exe'
          - '\notepad.exe'
          - '\powershell.exe'
          - '\pwsh.exe'
          - '\regsvr32.exe'
          - '\rundll32.exe'
          - '\wscript.exe'
    - Image|contains:
          - ':\PerfLogs\'
          - ':\Temp\'
          - ':\Users\Public\'
          - '\AppData\Temp\'
          - '\Windows\System32\Tasks\'
          - '\Windows\Tasks\'
          - '\Windows\Temp\'
condition: all of selection_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Unknown

Tags

• attack.stealth
• attack.t1218

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1218

Related rules

• 7f5d1c9a-3e83-48df-95a7-2b98aae6c13c (similar)
• 2a4b3e61-9d22-4e4a-b60f-6e8f0cde6f25 (similar)
• 7021255e-5db3-4946-a8b9-0ba7a4644a69 (similar)

References

• https://lolbas-project.github.io/lolbas/Binaries/Provlaunch/
• https://twitter.com/0gtweet/status/1674399582162153472

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_provlaunch_susp_child_process.yml