Malicious Cobalt Strike Post Exploitation Named Pipe

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1071.001Web Protocols
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of Cobalt Strike post exploitation named pipes following the postex prefix convention observed during the IcedID intrusion where the beacon spawned post exploitation jobs over SMB named pipes and this matters because the postex pipe pattern is a high fidelity signal of an active Cobalt Strike beacon performing credential and command tasks.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious Cobalt Strike Post Exploitation Named Pipe

Pivot detection · T1071.001 · 9 related

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

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