Malicious Renamed mshta.exe Execution by SideWinder APT

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1218.005Mshta
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects mshta.exe being executed under a renamed binary such as ProgramData\jkli.exe by matching the original filename metadata while the on-disk name differs. SideWinder copies System32 mshta.exe to a disguised path to run a remote HTA payload. A renamed system LOLBin strongly indicates defense evasion.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1218.005 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Remote HTA Payload Execution via MSHTA

Malicious Shell Spawned by Mshta Delivery (via process_creation)

Malicious Kimsuky Remote HTA Execution via URL Shortener (via process_creation)

ClickFix Paste-Jacking Execution of mshta Retrieving Remote Payload (via process_creation)

Suspicious mshta Execution of Remote HTA Payload

Malicious Renamed mshta.exe Execution by SideWinder APT

Pivot detection · T1218.005 · 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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