Malicious UAC Bypass via ms-settings Shell Open Command Registry Hijack (via registry_set)

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1548.002Bypass User Account Control
Defense Evasion
- T1548.002Bypass User Account Control
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects modification of the ms-settings protocol handler shell open command under the current user classes hive, the registry hijack that a Kimsuky campaign chained to trigger a batch file with elevated rights through fodhelper style auto-elevation. Adversaries leverage this key because trusted binaries query it while running high integrity, making early detection critical for catching privilege escalation before elevated payload execution.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1548.002 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Banana RAT UAC Skip Environment Variable in PowerShell

Malicious UAC Bypass via sdclt Handler Hijack (via registry_set)

Malicious UAC Bypass via ms-settings Handler Hijack (via registry_set)

Malicious DBatLoader DLL Sideloading via easinvoker.exe Loading netutils.dll (via image_load)

Suspicious dllhost.exe Spawned with CLSID and Anomalous Parent (via process_creation)

Malicious ms-settings DelegateExecute UAC Bypass Registry Change

Malicious User Account Control Bypass via Auto-Elevating Binary Hijack (via process_creation)

Suspicious Mock Trusted Directory with Trailing Space (via process_creation)

Suspicious UAC Bypass via ComputerDefaults Auto-Elevated Binary (via process_creation)

Malicious UAC Bypass via ms-settings Shell Open Command Registry Hijack (via registry_set)

Pivot detection · T1548.002 · 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 →