Suspicious BCP Data Staging to Public Music Directory

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1505.001SQL Stored Procedures
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the SQL Server bulk copy utility bcp.exe writing query output to the Public Music directory, a staging location used by operators who breached exposed MSSQL servers. Huntress observed this technique to drop payloads and stage data after xp_cmdshell abuse. Writing bcp query output to a world-writable public folder is a strong signal of post-exploitation tooling rather than administration.

Reporting behind it

Related detections8 linkedT1505.001 — drag to rearrange

Malicious SQL Server Command Execution Spawning Download Utilities via Process Creation

Malicious SQL Server Lateral Movement with CLR Activation (via application)

Malicious SQL Server Dedicated Admin Connection (DAC) Suspicious Activity (via application)

Malicious SQL Server Sqlcmd Utility Abuse for Privilege Escalation (via process_creation)

Malicious SQL Server Dedicated Admin Connection (DAC) Mode Activated - Native (via application)

Malicious Command Shell Spawned by SQL Server via xp_cmdshell

Windows: Suspicious HTA Startup Folder Creation by FoxitPDFReader.exe

Database SQL keyword matching suspicious queries (DROP/TRUNCATE/DUMP/SELECT *)

Suspicious BCP Data Staging to Public Music Directory

Pivot detection · T1505.001 · 8 related

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

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →