Malicious Shell Spawned by SharePoint Worker Process w3wp

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Persistence

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.003Windows Command Shell
Persistence
- T1505.003Web Shell
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the SharePoint worker process w3wp.exe spawning a command shell or PowerShell, the post-exploitation behavior following ToolShell webshell deployment. A web server worker launching interactive shells indicates webshell execution or exploitation of the hosting application.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1505.003 — drag to rearrange

Malicious IIS Worker Process Spawning Command Shell via process_creation

Suspicious cmd.exe execution from w3wp.exe tied to CentreStack portal.config (Windows process creation)

Suspicious SD-WAN Compromise JSP Webshell Access

Malicious AquaShell Webshell Access on Cisco Secure Email Gateway by UAT-9686

Malicious IIS Worker Process Spawning Command Shell Reconnaissance

Malicious StyleSmuggler (CVE-2026-75650) Web Shell Dropped In Magento Product Image Cache (via file_event)

Suspicious Web Shell File Written to IIS wwwroot Directory

Suspicious IP Release and Renew via Minimized cmd During Driver Install

Possible Citrix ShareFile Unauthenticated Upload Path Traversal Webshell (CVE-2023-24489) (via webserver)

Malicious Shell Spawned by SharePoint Worker Process w3wp

Pivot detection · T1505.003 · 9 related

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

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 →