Obfuscated Certutil Payload Obfuscation - Command (via process_creation)
- Product
- windows
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-08-31
- Updated
- 2026-08-31
ATT&CK techniques
Defense EvasionRecon
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 abuse certutil command to download obfuscated malicious payload. Tools like Tchopper can trigger this rule.
Reporting behind it
- attack.mitre.orghttps://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1140/
- elastic.cohttps://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/suspicious-certutil-commands.html
- bleepingcomputer.comhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/certutilexe-could-allow-attackers-to-download-malware-while-bypassing-av/
- attack.mitre.orghttps://attack.mitre.org/software/S0160/
- docs.microsoft.comhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/certutil
- sentinelone.comhttps://www.sentinelone.com/blog/malware-living-off-land-with-certutil/
- thedfirreport.comhttps://thedfirreport.com/2022/07/11/select-xmrig-from-sqlserver/
- lolbas-project.github.iohttps://lolbas-project.github.io/lolbas/Binaries/Certutil/
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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