Malicious Service Creation to Execute tscon for RDP Session Hijacking

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1543.003Windows Service
Priv Esc
- T1543.003Windows Service
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1563.002RDP Hijacking
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects registration of a Windows service whose image path invokes tscon.exe with a destination session, the mechanism adversaries use to run tscon under the SYSTEM service context and hijack an inactive Remote Desktop session. Standalone tscon execution is insufficient for this technique, so a service wrapping tscon is a strong signal of session hijacking. Legitimate services do not invoke tscon in this manner.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1543.003 — drag to rearrange

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Malicious Service Permissions Hijacked for Privileges Abuse - Service (via process_creation)

Malicious Service Abuse with Backdoored "command Failure" - Service (via process_creation)

Malicious Service Permissions Hijacked for Privileges Abuse - Reg via Command (via process_creation)

Malicious Mimikatz Driver Registration - Reg via Sysmon (via registry_event)

Suspicious PSexec Service Installation (via security)

Malicious Service Creation to Execute tscon for RDP Session Hijacking

Pivot detection · T1543.003 · 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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