Malicious File Download via Certutil URL Cache (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1105Ingress Tool Transfer
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects certutil being used with its URL cache and split switches to download a remote file over HTTP. The BadPilot campaign abuses certutil as a living-off-the-land downloader to fetch additional tooling, so this ingress-tool-transfer pattern indicates staging of second-stage payloads.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1105 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious File Download via CertUtil Linked to Salt Typhoon

Malicious rundll32 WebDAV UNC Execution over HTTP

Malicious OpenClaw Stealer Electron Staging Directory Creation

Suspicious PrivateLoader NSIS Installer Dropped to Disk (via file_event)

Suspicious rundll32 Execution of DLL from WebDAV Share (via process_creation)

Suspicious Payload Retrieval via finger LOLBin

Malicious PowerShell Download of vhost.exe Payload

Malicious Certutil URL Cache Download of Remote Payload

Malicious PowerShell Download of conqueror.exe to Public Directory via Gladinet Exploitation

Malicious File Download via Certutil URL Cache (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1105 · 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 →