Detection rules › Splunk
Short Lived Scheduled Task
The following analytic detects the creation and deletion of scheduled tasks within a short time frame (less than 30 seconds) using Windows Security EventCodes 4698 and 4699. This behavior is identified by analyzing Windows Security Event Logs and leveraging the Windows TA for parsing. Such activity is significant as it may indicate lateral movement or remote code execution attempts by adversaries. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized access, data exfiltration, or execution of malicious payloads, necessitating prompt investigation and response by security analysts.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Execution | T1053.005 Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task |
| Persistence | T1053.005 Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task |
| Privilege Escalation | T1053.005 Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task |
Event coverage
| Provider | Event ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Security-Auditing | 4698 | A scheduled task was created. |
| Security-Auditing | 4699 | A scheduled task was deleted. |
Stages and Predicates
Stage 1: search
search (EventCode=4698 OR EventCode=4699)
Stage 2: xmlkv
xmlkv
Stage 3: transaction
transaction Task_Name endswith=EventCode = 4699 startswith=EventCode = 4698
Stage 4: eval
eval ... using (duration)
Stage 5: search
search short_lived=TRUE
Stage 6: rename
rename
Stage 7: table
table Account_Name, Command, Task_Name, _time, dest, short_lived
Stage 8: search
search `macro`
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.
| Field | Kind | Values |
|---|---|---|
EventCode | eq |
|
short_lived | eq |
|
Neighbors
Often fire together
Rules that target events appearing in the same incident timelines. They pattern-match on adjacent steps of the same TTP, so an alert from one is often paired with alerts from these. Useful for triage context and for assembling chained-detection rules.
Share event IDs (chain-detection candidates)
Rules that observe the same Windows event-ID pairs as this one. If you're authoring a multi-stage / sequence rule that spans these events, these are the existing detections that already cover one or both endpoints.