Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save for Credential Access

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 use of reg.exe to save the SAM SECURITY or SYSTEM registry hives to disk as performed during the Nearest Neighbor Attack by a Russian APT. Dumping these hives enables offline extraction of cached credentials and secrets. This is a common precursor to credential-based lateral movement.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save for Credential Access

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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