Malicious Scheduled Task Masquerading as VLC or Adobe Update

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-09
Updated
2026-10-09

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Priv Esc
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Defense Evasion

  5. Cred Access

  6. Discovery

  7. Lateral Movement

  8. Collection

  9. C2

  10. Exfiltration

  11. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the creation of a scheduled task named to impersonate a VLC or Adobe update task. Cloud Atlas established persistence with tasks named MicrosoftVLCTaskMachine and MicrosoftAdobeUpdateTaskMachine as reported by Kaspersky. These specific masquerading task names combined with schtasks creation indicate malicious persistence.

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Malicious Scheduled Task Masquerading as VLC or Adobe Update
Pivot detection · T1053.005 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.