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 Turla TinyTurla w64time DLL Load via image_load

Malicious APT15 Persistence via Nwsapagent Service or Run Key Registry Value

Possible Driver Enumeration via Driverquery for Rootkit Discovery

Malicious Kernel Driver Load from User AppData Directory

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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