Malicious Windows Defender Root Exclusion via Add-MpPreference (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the use of Add-MpPreference to register a broad exclusion path covering an entire drive root such as C. The D3F@ck Malware-as-a-Service loader uses this technique to disable Microsoft Defender scanning of its staging locations before dropping additional payloads. Blanket root exclusions are almost always malicious and blind the endpoint to all downstream tooling.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1685 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious SELinux Enforcement Disabled via Setenforce Command Line (via process_creation)

Suspicious SELinux and Firewall Disabling on Linux by Cryptominer (via process_creation)

Suspicious Windows Defender Exclusion of User Profile via PowerShell (via process_creation)

Malicious Vulnerable Driver Service Creation for BYOVD (via process_creation)

Malicious Windows Defender Root Exclusion via Add-MpPreference (via process_creation)

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.

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