Malicious ThrottleStop Vulnerable Driver Load for Defense Evasion

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
driver_load
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-18
Updated
2026-10-18

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 loading of the ThrottleStop.sys driver, a signed but vulnerable component abused to disable or blind endpoint defenses from kernel space. The Gentlemen ransomware brings this driver to terminate security products before encryption. Detecting the driver load surfaces bring-your-own-vulnerable-driver activity used to impair defenses.

Related detections9 linkedT1685 — drag to rearrange
Malicious WinRing0 Vulnerable Driver Load for Coin Mining
Suspicious Security Software Removal Batch Script Execution
Suspicious Silent Security Product Uninstaller Execution
Malicious Antivirus Removal via WMIC Product Uninstall
Malicious Defender Exclusion Added via Add-MpPreference (via process_creation)
Suspicious Microsoft Defender Exclusion Added for TEMP and PowerShell via Add-MpPreference
Suspicious ESXi execInstalledOnly Disabled via esxcli During Ransomware
Malicious Defender Tampering via Registry DisableRealtimeMonitoring
Suspicious SmartScreen Disable via Registry Modification via registry_set
Malicious ThrottleStop Vulnerable Driver Load for Defense Evasion
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.