Malicious PowerShell Executing Script From Public Directory via WScript

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.001PowerShell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects PowerShell launched with an unrestricted execution policy to run a script file staged under C\Users\Public. Revenge RAT drops opera.vbs which invokes powershell -nologo -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -File to execute Opera.ps1 from the Public folder. Running PowerShell scripts from the world-writable Public directory with a bypassed policy is a strong indicator of staged malware execution.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange

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Malicious Metasploit Stager Delivery via mshta Remote HTA (via process_creation)

Malicious PowerShell Executing Script From Public Directory via WScript

Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

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

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