System Shutdown/Reboot T1529

Adversaries may shutdown/reboot systems to interrupt access to, or aid in the destruction of, those systems. Operating systems may contain commands to initiate a shutdown/reboot of a machine or network device. In some cases, these commands may also be used to initiate a shutdown/reboot of a remote computer or network device via Network Device CLI (e.g. reload). They may also include shutdown/reboot of a virtual machine via hypervisor / cloud consoles or command line tools.

Events covered

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

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 7 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names 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 (6 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
CommandLine5contains 5, in 3* -f*, * -t*, * -l*, * -r*, * -s*
OriginalFileName3eq 3shutdown.exe
process_name3eq 3shutdown.exe
Image2ends_with 2\shutdown.exe
EventID1eq 11074
ScriptBlockText1contains 1, match 1$cmdargs, $command | nslookup 2>&1 | out-string, $session.dead = $true

Top indicator values (30 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. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
CommandLinecontains
shutdown
34
CommandLinecontains
/l
1
CommandLinecontains
/r
1
CommandLinecontains
/s
13
CommandLinein
* -f*
33
CommandLinein
* -t*
33
CommandLinein
* /f*
35
CommandLinein
* /t*
34
CommandLinein
* -l*
1
CommandLinein
* -r*
12
CommandLinein
* -s*
12
CommandLinein
* /l*
1
CommandLinein
* /r*
1
CommandLinein
* /s*
1
OriginalFileNameeq
shutdown.exe
33
process_nameeq
shutdown.exe
34
Imageends_with
\shutdown.exe
22
EventIDeq
1074
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
$cmdargs
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
$command | nslookup 2>&1 | out-string
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
$session.dead = $true
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
close-dnscat2tunnel
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
exception in execution
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
new-randomdnsfield
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
restart-computer
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
set type=$lookuptype`nserver
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
stop-computer
1
ScriptBlockTextcontains
system.diagnostics.process
1
ScriptBlockTextmatch
$session["driver"] -eq
1
ScriptBlockTextmatch
[convert]::tostring($synoptions, 16)
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 3 rules

Splunk 4 rules