Suspicious attrib Hidden and System Attribute Assignment

PremiumReviewedSigma · Low · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-25
Updated
2026-09-25

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the attrib command setting hidden and system attributes on files, a concealment technique observed in the Suky Castle campaign where the chain applied attrib to hide dropped artifacts before scheduling persistence. It captures the marking of files as hidden and system to keep malicious payloads out of view. Detecting this is important because interactive use of attrib to apply both hidden and system flags is uncommon and frequently tied to staging of malware.

Related detections9 linkedT1564.001 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious File Hiding via attrib Plus H in Java RAT Persistence Setup
Suspicious Execution of Hidden Binary from Private Tmp via Process Creation
Suspicious Executable Written to User Documents Subfolder (via file_event)
Suspicious Sobolan Staging Directory Creation in var tmp (via file_event)
FireWood Backdoor Persistence Files in Hidden kde-root Directory (via file_event)
Suspicious Attrib Hiding of Stealer Artifacts (via process_creation)
Suspicious perfctl Hidden IPC Directory Creation in tmp (via file_event)
Suspicious Executable Running From Fake Chrome User Profile Directory
Malicious Cryptominer Staging Files Dropped in tmp Directory
Suspicious attrib Hidden and System Attribute Assignment
Pivot detection · T1564.001 · 9 related

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