ATT&CK coverage › Technique

XSL Script Processing T1220

Adversaries may bypass application control and obscure execution of code by embedding scripts inside XSL files. Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) files are commonly used to describe the processing and rendering of data within XML files. To support complex operations, the XSL standard includes support for embedded scripting in various languages.

Events covered

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

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation
Sysmon7Image loaded
Security-Auditing4688A new process has been created.

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 5 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 (5 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
Image5ends_with 5\wmic.exe, \msxsl.exe
CommandLine3match 3\\\\, ://, /format:, http, Format:value
Hashes2match 2IMPHASH=16A48C3CABF98A9DC1BF02C07FE1EA00, IMPHASH=1B1A3F43BF37B5BFE60751F2EE2F326E, IMPHASH=9D87C9D67CE724033C0B40CC4CA1B206
OriginalFileName2eq 2wmic.exe
ImageLoaded1ends_with 1\jscript.dll, \vbscript.dll

Top indicator values (24 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\wmic.exe337
Imageends_with\msxsl.exe27
HashesmatchIMPHASH=9D87C9D67CE724033C0B40CC4CA1B20622
HashesmatchIMPHASH=B12619881D79C3ACADF45E752A58554A22
HashesmatchIMPHASH=37777A96245A3C74EB217308F3546F4C22
HashesmatchIMPHASH=16A48C3CABF98A9DC1BF02C07FE1EA0022
CommandLinematch://24
HashesmatchIMPHASH=1B1A3F43BF37B5BFE60751F2EE2F326E22
OriginalFileNameeqwmic.exe233
CommandLinematch\\\\27
CommandLinematch/format:1
CommandLinematchhttp131
ImageLoadedends_with\vbscript.dll13
ImageLoadedends_with\jscript.dll12
CommandLinematchFormat:rawxml1
CommandLinematch-format:1
CommandLinematchFormat:mof1
CommandLinematchFormat:htable1
CommandLinematchFormat:csv1
CommandLinematchFormat:value1

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 5 rules