Possible Network Service Scanning via Nmap or Masscan (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1046Network Service Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of network scanners such as nmap, masscan or zmap, a network-service-discovery technique attackers run to map reachable hosts and open ports for lateral movement. Internal scanning is tracked in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report. Detecting scanner execution surfaces reconnaissance from a compromised host.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1046 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Advanced IP Scanner Execution for Network Discovery

Suspicious masscan Scanning Docker API Port 2375

Suspicious Network Reconnaissance via Advanced Port Scanner

Suspicious Nmap Scanner Probe URIs in HTTP Requests (via webserver)

Suspicious Internet Scanning for Docker and Kubelet Ports via masscan

Suspicious Fscan Internal Network Scanner Execution (via process_creation)

Malicious Anonymous Login - Domain Specified (via security)

Suspicious Network Scanning Tool Execution

Malicious RDP Discovery Performed on Multiple Hosts (via rdp)

Possible Network Service Scanning via Nmap or Masscan (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1046 · 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 →