Malicious Registry Hive Dump of SAM or SYSTEM via Reg Save (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
- T1003.002Security Account Manager
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects reg.exe saving the SAM, SYSTEM or SECURITY registry hive to disk, which lets an attacker extract local credential material and boot keys for offline hash recovery. Registry hive dumping is a credential-access technique documented in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report. Detecting these save commands surfaces local credential theft in progress.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1003.002 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Credential Hive Copy from Volume Shadow Copy

Malicious Secretdump Password Dumping via SMB Admin Share (via security)

Malicious Registry Hive Dump of SAM and SYSTEM via Reg Save (via process_creation)

Suspicious SAM Registry Hive Dump to Windows Temp by BianLian

Malicious SAM and SYSTEM Hive Dump via reg save (via process_creation)

Malicious Mimikatz Credential Access Module Invocation

Malicious SYSTEM Registry Hive Dump via reg.exe by Sandworm

Suspicious Registry SYSTEM Hive Dump via Reg Save (via process_creation)

Malicious SAM and SYSTEM Hive Dump via reg save

Malicious Registry Hive Dump of SAM or SYSTEM via Reg Save (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1003.002 · 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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