Malicious Script Host Spawning PowerShell With Invoke-Expression (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.001PowerShell
- T1059.005Visual Basic
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects wscript or cscript launching PowerShell with an Invoke-Expression payload, the VBScript to PowerShell IEX chain used by GuLoader to deliver malware. A Windows script host spawning PowerShell to evaluate a downloaded string is a common in-memory execution pattern rarely produced by legitimate automation.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Office Application Spawning Script Interpreter

Suspicious Node Package Install Spawning Script Interpreters via process_creation

Suspicious Windows Script Host Spawning PowerShell via Gootloader

Suspicious Script Host Spawning PowerShell via BlindEagle Chain

Suspicious WScript Spawning PowerShell From VBS Loader via wscript.exe (via process_creation)

Suspicious PowerShell Spawned by Windows Script Host from HTML Smuggling (via process_creation)

Suspicious PowerShell Spawned by Windows Script Host via Process Creation (via process_creation)

Malicious Excel Macro Spawning Scripting Interpreter Downloader (via process_creation)

Windows AppLocker Audit-Only Events Indicating What Would Be Blocked in Enforce Mode

Malicious Script Host Spawning PowerShell With Invoke-Expression (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

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

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →