Malicious Print Spooler Privilege Escalation via Printer Added - CVE-2020-1048 (via powershell)

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Service
powershell
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-07-30
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Defense Evasion

  6. Cred Access

  7. Discovery

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects abuse the printer spooler features to load a DLL. The attack is composed by 4 steps > 1) create a printer that points to a missing DLL 2) print to that port 3) crash the printer spool 4) have his original DLL registered for privilege escalation.

Related detections6 linkedT1547.010 — drag to rearrange
SystemNightmare by GentilKiwi - External Printer Mapped - CVE-2021-1675 / CVE-2021-34527 (via security)
SystemNightmare by GentilKiwi - New External Device Added - CVE-2021-1675 / CVE-2021-34527 (via security)
Windows Process Creation: Suspicious secedit.exe Security Policy Export or Configuration
Registry Modification for UAC Bypass via Event Viewer Command Handler (Windows)
Windows Registry: RDP PortNumber changed from default 3389
Windows Registry: Add Print Port Monitor DLL Persistence
Malicious Print Spooler Privilege Escalation via Printer Added - CVE-2020-1048 (via powershell)
Pivot detection · T1547.010 · 6 related

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