Malicious Head Mare Run Key Persistence Masquerading as MicrosoftUpdate

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1547.001Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder
Priv Esc
- T1547.001Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder
Defense Evasion
- T1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a Run key named MicrosoftUpdateCore or MicrosoftUpdateCoree pointing to srvhost.exe, the persistence and masquerading technique used by the Head Mare group. The combination of a legitimate-looking update name with a srvhost.exe payload that impersonates svchost is a strong indicator of the group's foothold.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1547.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Run Key Persistence With Masqueraded System Binary by Millenium RAT (via registry_set)

Malicious WezRat Persistence via Chrome Updater Run Key

LeakyStealer Persistence via EdgeUpdateCore Run Key Masquerade (via registry_set)

Suspicious Run Key Masquerading as GoogleUpdate From Wrong Path via Registry Set (via registry_set)

Suspicious SugarGh0st Persistence via CTFMON Masqueraded Run Key (via registry_set)

Malicious MicrosoftUpdate Run Key Persistence via Axios Compromise

Suspicious Service NetDnsActivatorSharing Creation via Process Creation

Malicious Coyote Persistence via UserInitMprLogonScript Environment Value (via registry_set)

Suspicious SOCKS Proxy Autorun Registry Persistence via Registry Set

Malicious Head Mare Run Key Persistence Masquerading as MicrosoftUpdate

Pivot detection · T1547.001 · 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 →