Malicious Reverse SSH Tunnel via Plink for RDP Forwarding

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1572Protocol Tunneling
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of the Plink SSH client to establish a reverse tunnel that forwards local RDP back to attacker infrastructure which Conti operators use for persistent remote access. Observed in NCC Group research on Conti operations after the leaks using a renamed Plink binary over port 53. Reverse RDP tunneling through SSH is a strong indicator of hands-on-keyboard intrusion.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1572 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious DNS Query to Dynamic DNS and Tunneling Providers Abused by RATs

Suspicious SSH Reverse Tunnel Over DNS Port

Suspicious Reverse SSH Tunnel Exposing Local SSH via process_creation

Suspicious OpenSSH Reverse Tunnel Creation via Process Creation

Suspicious OpenSSH Reverse Tunnel Establishment via process_creation

Suspicious LocalToNet Tunneling Tool Execution

Malicious RDP Tunneling via ngrok (via process_creation)

Suspicious UUID Named Pipe Created Consistent with Mythic SMB Agent

Malicious Chisel Reverse Tunnel Execution for Protocol Tunneling

Malicious Reverse SSH Tunnel via Plink for RDP Forwarding

Pivot detection · T1572 · 9 related

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