Malicious LSASS Memory Access From a Non-System Process (via process_access)

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_access
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-01
Updated
2026-09-01

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 a process opening a handle to LSASS with memory-read access rights typical of credential-dumping tooling, while excluding the small set of legitimate operating-system components that normally interact with LSASS. Access to LSASS memory is a top credential-access technique in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report, yielding plaintext secrets and hashes for lateral movement. Alerting on non-system readers of LSASS surfaces dumping attempts across custom and off-the-shelf tools.

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Malicious LSASS Memory Access From a Non-System Process (via process_access)
Pivot detection · T1003.001 · 9 related

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