Suspicious Execution Delay via Ping to Loopback Address

PremiumReviewedSigma · Low · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-03
Updated
2026-10-03

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion → Discovery
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Cred Access

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects ping.exe being directed at the loopback address which Spectre RAT uses as a time based execution delay to evade sandbox analysis and space out its actions. Pinging localhost in combination with follow on execution is a common defense evasion trick seen in loaders and RATs.

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