Possible Telegram Bot API Command and Control Channel

PremiumReviewedSigma · Low · v1
Product
windows
Category
dns_query
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-17
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

C2
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects DNS resolution of the Telegram bot API host api.telegram.org. QwixxRAT and similar stealers abuse the Telegram Bot API as a command-and-control and exfiltration channel to receive commands and upload stolen data. Because legitimate Telegram clients also resolve this host this signal should be correlated with unexpected processes making the query.

Related detections9 linkedT1102 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Anubis Ransomware Cloudflare Tunnel via cloudflared (via process_creation)
Possible ITG05 Headlace Staging via Mocky and Mockbin Services (via proxy)
PowerShell Remote Download From Bunny CDN Host
Suspicious DNS Query for TryCloudflare Tunnel Abused for Malware Delivery (via dns_query)
Possible Access-Code Validation Beacon to Malware Delivery C2 (via proxy)
Suspicious Payload Retrieval from Cloudflare Tunnel via LOLBin (via process_creation)
Suspicious Malware Delivery via Discord CDN Attachment
Suspicious PowerShell Communication with Dropbox API (via ps_script)
Suspicious C2 Connection to AWS Lambda Function URL
Possible Telegram Bot API Command and Control Channel
Pivot detection · T1102 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.