huntrule

Malicious Command Output Written to SMB Named Pipe

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-07-28
Updated
2026-08-28
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Lateral Movement

  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a command shell echoing data into a local named pipe object which the Dagon Locker actor used as a Cobalt Strike SMB beacon communication channel and this matters because writing to a raw named pipe from a shell is characteristic of beacon linking and post exploitation tasking rather than any legitimate scripting.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1021.002 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious SMB Admin Share Mapping for Lateral Tool Transfer (via process_creation)
Suspicious Impacket Remote Execution Tool Usage via process_creation
Suspicious Remote Service Execution via PsExec (via process_creation)
Suspicious RemCom Service Named Pipe for Lateral Movement (via pipe_created)
Suspicious WMIC Remote Process Creation for Lateral Movement
Suspicious File Copy to Administrative SMB Share via net.exe (via process_creation)
Malicious PsExec Service Binary Execution from Windows Directory via services.exe (via process_creation)
Malicious Remote Command Execution via smbexec Output Redirection Pattern
Malicious Lateral Movement via PsExec File-List Target
Malicious Command Output Written to SMB Named Pipe
Pivot detection · T1021.002 · 9 related

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