Malicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Registry

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1112Modify Registry
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1112Modify Registry
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1021.001Remote Desktop Protocol
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the fDenyTSConnections value being set to 0, enabling inbound Remote Desktop connections on a host. During KawaLocker deployment this was combined with firewall disabling to open interactive access for lateral movement. Enabling RDP on servers or endpoints that normally block it expands the attacker foothold.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1112 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Remote Desktop Enabled via fDenyTSConnections Registry by Sandworm

Enabling RDP service via reg.exe command execution

Suspicious LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy Enabled via Registry (UAT-7237)

Windows reg.exe Used to Modify RDP Terminal Server Registry Values

Suspicious Plink SSH Tunnel Execution (via process_creation)

Malicious Gh0stBins RAT Registry Marker HHClient

Suspicious PebbleDash C2 Configuration Stored Under WMI Security Key (via registry_set)

Suspicious WDigest UseLogonCredential Enablement for Plaintext Credential Theft (via registry_set)

PowerShell Storing an Encoded Payload in the Registry (via process_creation)

Malicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Registry

Pivot detection · T1112 · 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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