Malicious Registry Hive Theft from Shadow Copy via Print LOLBIN

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion → Cred Access

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1006Direct Volume Access
Cred Access
- T1003.002Security Account Manager
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects print.exe copying files from a volume shadow copy device path referencing GLOBALROOT, HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy, or a @GMT snapshot UNC path, a LOLBIN abuse technique documented by Huntress for stealing SAM and SYSTEM hives. Attackers use the print utility to read locked credential stores from a shadow copy without triggering hive-export tooling. This file-copy pattern via print.exe is highly anomalous and indicates credential-store theft.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1003.002 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Volume Shadow Copy Access via Mklink to GLOBALROOT

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

Suspicious Archiving of Registry Hives via WinRAR (UAT-8099)

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

Malicious Registry Hive Theft from Shadow Copy via Print LOLBIN

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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