Malicious Remote Encryptor Execution via WMIC Process Call Create (Chaos Ransomware)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Critical · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-11
Updated
2026-09-11

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Impact
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

What it detects

This rule detects the Chaos ransomware group using WMIC to remotely spawn its encryptor binary with campaign-specific arguments such as lkey, encrypt_step and work_mode. Remote process creation over WMI is used to deploy the encryptor across the network. This behavior indicates active ransomware deployment combined with lateral movement.

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Malicious Remote Encryptor Execution via WMIC Process Call Create (Chaos Ransomware)
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Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.