Suspicious Child Process Spawned by IIS Worker Process w3wp
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-09-18
- Updated
- 2026-09-18
ATT&CK techniques
Initial Access → PersistenceRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects the IIS worker process w3wp.exe spawning a command interpreter or scripting host, a strong indicator of web exploitation or webshell activity such as the ViewState deserialization abuse that delivered the TOLLBOOTH IIS module. Command shells launched from the web server are rarely legitimate.
Reporting behind it
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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