Possible Plink Reverse Tunnel Command Line Execution

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1572Protocol Tunneling
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects Plink invoked to establish a reverse SSH tunnel with no interactive shell, using the -N and -R switches together. The Lazarus Group deployed a customized Plink (including a renamed pvhost.exe) to build reverse tunnels such as -N -R 18118 and -N -R 4443 -P 443 for command-and-control relaying. This tunneling technique lets attackers pivot into internal networks through an outbound SSH connection.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious HelloNet SSH Reverse Tunnel via frontpage.exe (via process_creation)

Possible Ngrok RDP Tunnel Exposure via TCP 3389

Malicious Cloudflared Tunnel Established with Token

Possible Plink Reverse Tunnel Command Line Execution

Pivot detection · T1572 · 9 related

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