Malicious ClickFix Execution via Headless Conhost

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a command shell or PowerShell spawned by conhost.exe running with the --headless flag, a ClickFix pattern that hides the console window while executing pasted attacker commands. This was observed across ClickFix variants delivering downloaders. A headless conhost parent for a shell is highly anomalous and indicates user-tricked code execution.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange

Exchange Worker Process Spawning Command Shell via OWASSRF

Suspicious Hidden PowerShell Launched by Batch Script

Malicious PowerShell Clipboard Script Execution via ScriptBlock Create

Malicious ClickFix MSI Download and Execution via PowerShell

Obfuscated Paste-and-Run Execution From the Windows Run Dialog (via process_creation)

MSSQL Server Process Spawning Command Shell via xp_cmdshell

Suspicious MSSQL xp_cmdshell OS Command Execution via sqlservr.exe (via process_creation)

Malicious Fire Ant Host-to-Guest Command Execution via VMware Tools (via process_creation)

Malicious Office Application Spawning a Command Shell or Script Interpreter (via process_creation)

Malicious ClickFix Execution via Headless Conhost

Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →