Malicious Credential Hive Dump via Reg Save

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-17
Updated
2026-09-17

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of reg save to export the SAM registry hive which the REF0657 intrusion used to steal local account password hashes for offline cracking. Saving the SAM hive is a credential access action with no benign use case in normal administration.

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Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save
Malicious SAM and SYSTEM Registry Hive Credential Dump via reg.exe (via process_creation)
Malicious Registry Hive Theft from Shadow Copy via Print LOLBIN
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Malicious Credential Hive Dump via Reg Save
Pivot detection · T1003.002 · 9 related

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