PowerShell Spawned by wscript.exe or cscript.exe on Windows

Flags PowerShell launched by Windows script engines (wscript/cscript), excluding specific Health Service State activity.

FreeReviewedSigma · Medium · v1

Product: windows
Category: process_creation
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2026-07-30

Analysis Detection

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.001PowerShell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule identifies PowerShell executions where the parent process is wscript.exe or cscript.exe and the child process is powershell.exe or pwsh.exe. Attackers often use script engines to launch PowerShell for execution and staging while blending into common automation workflows. The detection relies on Windows process creation telemetry capturing parent and image paths, with an exclusion for processes with a current directory containing '\Health Service State\'.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Script Interpreter Spawned by Explorer via ClickFix Run Dialog (via process_creation)

Suspicious PowerShell Download Cradle via ClickFix Fake CAPTCHA (via process_creation)

Suspicious PowerShell EncodedCommand Spawned From Command Shell via Process Creation

Suspicious Script Download via Curl and PowerShell by Dohdoor

Malicious Mass Hyper-V Virtual Machine Shutdown via PowerShell by Kraken Ransomware

Suspicious PowerShell WebClient DownloadFile of Archive Payload (UAT-7237)

Suspicious SharePoint Worker Process Spawning Command Interpreter via ToolShell

Malicious Emmenhtal JavaScript Loader Spawning Encoded PowerShell

Suspicious Python Interpreter Launching Encoded PowerShell via subprocess

PowerShell Spawned by wscript.exe or cscript.exe on Windows

Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

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

powershell-spawned-by-wscript-exe-or-cscript-exe-on-windows-95eadcb2

title: PowerShell Spawned by wscript.exe or cscript.exe on Windows
id: d820a2f6-cee7-46ac-a322-6613eeff37f2
status: test
description: This rule identifies PowerShell executions where the parent process is wscript.exe or cscript.exe and the child process is powershell.exe or pwsh.exe. Attackers often use script engines to launch PowerShell for execution and staging while blending into common automation workflows. The detection relies on Windows process creation telemetry capturing parent and image paths, with an exclusion for processes with a current directory containing '\Health Service State\'.
references:
  - https://www.securitynewspaper.com/2017/03/20/attackers-leverage-excel-powershell-dns-latest-non-malware-attack/
  - https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/master/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_powershell_script_engine_parent.yml
author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Huntrule Team
date: 2019-01-16
modified: 2023-01-05
tags:
  - attack.execution
  - attack.t1059.001
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection:
    ParentImage|endswith:
      - \wscript.exe
      - \cscript.exe
    Image|endswith:
      - \powershell.exe
      - \pwsh.exe
  filter_health_service:
    CurrentDirectory|contains: \Health Service State\
  condition: selection and not 1 of filter_*
falsepositives:
  - Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM)
  - Other scripts
level: medium
license: DRL-1.1
related:
  - id: 95eadcb2-92e4-4ed1-9031-92547773a6db
    type: derived

Convert

This rule as a query you can run. Uses no unlock credit.

SplunkSPL