huntrule

PowerShell SAM Hive Copy via Volume Shadow Copy Paths on Windows

Flags PowerShell commands that copy the SAM hive from Volume Shadow Copy locations using .NET or PowerShell copy semantics.

FreeReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published
2021-07-29
Updated
2026-07-30
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access

  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. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule identifies PowerShell executions whose command lines reference the SAM hive under System32\config\sam while also including Volume Shadow Copy paths. It further matches copy operations typical of attempts to duplicate sensitive credential store data for offline access. The detection relies on Windows process creation telemetry and PowerShell command-line contents indicating both the target hive path and the copy behavior.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1003.002 — drag to rearrange
Credential Dumping via Reg Save of SAM Hive
Malicious Registry Hive Dump via reg save
Suspicious Archiving of Registry Hives via WinRAR (UAT-8099)
Malicious Registry Hive Dump of SAM or SYSTEM via Reg Save (via process_creation)
Malicious Credential Hive Copy from Volume Shadow Copy
Malicious Secretdump Password Dumping via SMB Admin Share (via security)
Malicious Registry Hive Dump of SAM and SYSTEM via Reg Save (via process_creation)
Suspicious SAM Registry Hive Dump to Windows Temp by BianLian
Malicious SAM and SYSTEM Hive Dump via reg save (via process_creation)
PowerShell SAM Hive Copy via Volume Shadow Copy Paths on Windows
Pivot detection · T1003.002 · 9 related

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