Malicious HiddenGh0st Guest Account Activation and Admin Group Addition (via process_creation)
- Product
- windows
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-07-05
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
PersistenceRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects activation of the built in guest account followed by adding it to the local administrators group as used by the HiddenGh0st MS-SQL intrusion for persistence. Re enabling and elevating the guest account is a rarely legitimate backdoor technique.
Reporting behind it
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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Also included
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