Malicious Security Service Deletion via Sc

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-24
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects sc.exe deleting Microsoft Defender and EDR related services such as Sense, WdFilter, or SgrmAgent, permanently removing protection components. This tampering is a hallmark of ransomware playbooks that disable endpoint defenses before impact. Deleting these services blinds detection and prevents recovery of protection without reinstallation.

Related detections9 linkedT1685 — drag to rearrange
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Malicious ESXi Firewall Disable via esxcli (via process_creation)
Malicious ESXi Syslog Redirection to tmp via esxcli
Suspicious Windows Defender Exclusion Enumeration via reg query (via process_creation)
Malicious Windows Defender Exclusion Added via PowerShell (via process_creation)
Malicious BYOVD EDR Kill via Renamed GMER Driver by Agonizing Serpens
Malicious Security Service Deletion via Sc
Pivot detection · T1685 · 9 related

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