Detection rules › Sigma

Remotely Hosted HTA File Executed Via Mshta.EXE

Severity
high
Author
Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
Source
upstream

Detects execution of the "mshta" utility with an argument containing the "http" keyword, which could indicate that an attacker is executing a remotely hosted malicious hta file

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Defense EvasionT1218.005 System Binary Proxy Execution: Mshta

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: all of selection_img

or:
Image|endswith: '\mshta.exe'
OriginalFileName: MSHTA.EXE

Stage 2: all of selection_cli

or:
CommandLine|contains: 'ftp://'
CommandLine|contains: 'http://'
CommandLine|contains: 'https://'

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

FieldKindValues
CommandLinematch
  • ftp:// corpus 7 (sigma 7)
  • http:// corpus 15 (sigma 15)
  • https:// corpus 14 (sigma 14)
Imageends_with
  • \mshta.exe corpus 57 (sigma 57)
OriginalFileNameeq
  • MSHTA.EXE corpus 7 (sigma 7)