PowerShell Local Account Creation With Self-Deleting Script

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1136.001Local Account
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a PowerShell script that creates a local user account and then removes itself from disk, a persistence-with-cleanup pattern observed during MSSQL server intrusions. Huntress recovered a user.ps1 that invoked New-LocalUser before deleting its own file. Combining account creation with self-deletion indicates covert backdoor account provisioning rather than routine administration.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1136.001 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Domain User Account Created via Net Command

Suspicious Local Account Creation Named DefaultService

ScreenConnect Administrator Provisioning XML Written to Temp Directory (CWE-288)

Suspicious Rogue VeeamBkp Account Creation by Estate Ransomware

Malicious Account Added to Domain Admins via net localgroup

PowerShell Local Account Creation With Self-Deleting Script

Pivot detection · T1136.001 · 9 related

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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