ATT&CK coverage › Technique

Masquerading: Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location T1036.005

Adversaries may match or approximate the name or location of legitimate files, Registry keys, or other resources when naming/placing them. This is done for the sake of evading defenses and observation.

Events covered

5 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation
Sysmon7Image loaded
Sysmon11FileCreate
Security-Auditing4688A new process has been created.
Defender-DeviceProcessEvents9001000Process activity (any)

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 14 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. Field names are normalized across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (14 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
Image10ends_with 10, eq 2, starts_with 1\svchost.exe, C:\Windows\SysWOW64\svchost.exe, \schtasks.exe, C:\Windows\System32\wuauclt.exe, C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe
OriginalFileName4eq 4schtasks.exe, \msiexec.exe, svchost.exe
ParentImage4ends_with 4, is_null 2, eq 2, match 1\rundll32.exe, :\Program Files (x86)\Zemana\AntiMalware\AntiMalware.exe, :\Program Files\Dell\SupportAssist\pcdrcui.exe, \MsMpEng.exe, \MRT.exe
TargetFilename3ends_with 3, match 3, starts_with 1C:\Windows\System32\, C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\, C:\Windows\SysWOW64\, \conhost.exe, \SearchProtocolHost.exe
CommandLine3match 3, is_null 1, regex_match 1, eq 1 regsvr32, taskhost, msiexec, /create, -create
Company1is_null 1, eq 1Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com, Sysinternals
Product1is_null 1, starts_with 1Sysinternals
IntegrityLevel1eq 1S-1-16-16384, System
ParentCommandLine1match 1:\WINDOWS\Installer\MSI, .tmp,zzzzInvokeManagedCustomActionOutOfProc
Signed1eq 1false
SignatureStatus1eq 1Unavailable
ImageLoaded1match 1, ends_with 1.node, \node.napi.glibc.node, .vscode\extensions\ms-toolsai.jupyter-
is_lolbas_path1eq 1"false"
desc1ne 1"false"

Top indicator values (385 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
Imageends_with\svchost.exe420
ParentImageends_with\MsMpEng.exe33
TargetFilenamematchC:\Windows\WinSxS\22
TargetFilenamematchC:\Windows\System32\22
TargetFilenamematchC:\$WINDOWS.~BT\22
TargetFilenamematchC:\Windows\uus\22
TargetFilenamematchC:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\22
TargetFilenamematchC:\Windows\SysWOW64\22
TargetFilenamematchC:\$WinREAgent\22
Imageends_with\schtasks.exe245
OriginalFileNameeqschtasks.exe214
ParentImageends_with\ngen.exe22
ParentImageeq-25
TargetFilenameends_with\secur32.dll1
TargetFilenameends_with\tdh.dll1
ImageeqC:\Windows\SysWOW64\wuauclt.exe1
TargetFilenameends_with\SecurityHealthSystray.exe1
TargetFilenamestarts_withC:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.PowerShellPreview\1
TargetFilenameends_with\logman.exe1
TargetFilenameends_with\WWAHost.exe1

Common exclusions (6 distinct)

Field/operator/value combinations that rules under this technique routinely exclude (top-level not() clauses). These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
Imagein"*\\PROGRA~*"1
Imagein"*:\\Windows\\WinSxS\\*"1
Imagein"*:\\Windows\\System32\\*"1
Imagein"*:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\*"1
Imagein"*\\Program Files \(x86\)\\"1
Imagein"*\\Program Files\\"1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Sigma 12 rules

Splunk 1 rule

Kusto Query Language 1 rule