Suspicious File Download via CertUtil Linked to Salt Typhoon

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1105Ingress Tool Transfer
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects certutil.exe used with URL cache or decode switches to retrieve or stage remote content, an ingress tool transfer technique used by Salt Typhoon. Attackers abuse this signed LOLBin to pull payloads while evading download controls, so certutil download and decode invocations are a well-known malicious tradecraft signal.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1105 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Payload Retrieval via finger LOLBin

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Malicious PowerShell Download of conqueror.exe to Public Directory via Gladinet Exploitation

Suspicious Remote MSI Installation from Amazon S3 via msiexec

Suspicious File Download via CertUtil Linked to Salt Typhoon

Pivot detection · T1105 · 9 related

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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