ATT&CK coverage › Technique
Event Triggered Execution: Change Default File Association T1546.001
Adversaries may establish persistence by executing malicious content triggered by a file type association. When a file is opened, the default program used to open the file (also called the file association or handler) is checked. File association selections are stored in the Windows Registry and can be edited by users, administrators, or programs that have Registry access or by administrators using the built-in assoc utility. Applications can modify the file association for a given file extension to call an arbitrary program when a file with the given extension is opened.
Events covered
4 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | 1 | Process creation |
| Sysmon | 12 | RegistryEvent (Object create and delete) |
| Sysmon | 13 | RegistryEvent (Value Set) |
| Sysmon | 14 | RegistryEvent (Key and Value Rename) |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 6 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 (7 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.
Top indicator values (43 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.
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
- Change Default File Association To Executable Via Assoc
- Change Default File Association Via Assoc
- Registry Modification of MS-settings Protocol Handler
- Shell Open Registry Keys Manipulation
- Suspicious Shell Open Command Registry Modification