Possible Process Injection into Notepad via PythonRatLoader (via process_creation)
- Product
- windows
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-05-15
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
Execution → Defense EvasionRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects notepad.exe being spawned by a Python interpreter, which corresponds to the PythonRatLoader chain that creates suspended notepad processes as hosts for Early Bird APC shellcode injection delivering DCRat, VenomRAT and XWorm. A Python process launching Notepad is highly abnormal on endpoints.
Reporting behind it
- cofense.comhttps://cofense.com/blog/pythonratloader-the-proprietor-of-xworm-and-friends
- attack.mitre.orghttps://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1055/004/
- attack.mitre.orghttps://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/006/
- fortinet.comhttps://www.fortinet.com/blog/threat-research/purehvnc-deployed-via-python-multi-stage-loader
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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