Malicious SOCKS Proxy Tunnel via Earthworm Rssocks by UAT-8837

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-11
Updated
2026-09-11

ATT&CK techniques

C2
  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. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of the Earthworm tunneling tool in rssocks reverse SOCKS mode connecting outbound. UAT-8837 uses Earthworm renamed as v.ico or verr.ico to tunnel traffic into victim networks. Reverse SOCKS proxies give an actor interactive access to internal systems while evading perimeter controls.

Related detections9 linkedT1090.001 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Volt Typhoon Port Proxy Configuration via Netsh (via process_creation)
Suspicious netsh Port Proxy Configuration for Covert Tunneling
Malicious Port Forwarding Tunnel via Netsh Portproxy (via process_creation)
Windows Execution of cloudflared for Cloudflare Try/Quick Tunnel Ad-hoc Tunneling
Windows Process Execution of Renamed cloudflared.exe with Tunnel/Run Command Arguments
Windows execution of cloudflared.exe from a non-default directory
Windows Process Creation: Chisel Tunneling Tool (chisel.exe) Execution
Windows SharpChisel Command-Line Execution via SharpChisel.exe
Windows WFP Event 5156: RDP traffic via loopback when hosted by svchost termsvcs
Malicious SOCKS Proxy Tunnel via Earthworm Rssocks by UAT-8837
Pivot detection · T1090.001 · 9 related

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