Malicious ValleyRAT RuntimeBroker Masquerade in RunTime Directory

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

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of RuntimeBroker.exe from C:\Program Files\RunTime, a masquerading location used by the Silver Fox APT to deploy its ValleyRAT loader. The legitimate RuntimeBroker.exe lives in System32, so a same-named binary under a RunTime folder is a trusted-name wrong-context indicator of the ValleyRAT dropper.

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Malicious ValleyRAT RuntimeBroker Masquerade in RunTime Directory
Pivot detection · T1036.005 · 9 related

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