Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-07
Updated
2026-10-07

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 reg.exe saving the SAM, SECURITY, or SYSTEM registry hives to disk. The Crypt Ghouls group exported these hives to extract secrets and account hashes offline, a common precursor to offline credential cracking and lateral movement.

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Malicious Registry Hive Dump via Reg Save for Credential Theft
Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save of SAM SYSTEM SECURITY
Suspicious Credential Dump via Registry Hive Save
Malicious Credential Hive Dump via Reg Save
Credential Dumping via Reg Save of SAM Hive
Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save
Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save
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.