Suspicious Forced System Shutdown or Restart via Shutdown Command (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Impact

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
- T1529System Shutdown/Reboot

What it detects

This rule detects the shutdown utility being invoked to force an immediate restart, power off, or logoff, the disruptive behavior NjRAT triggers alongside its MBR-wiping routine to interrupt the victim and complete destructive actions. Adversaries leverage forced shutdown to reboot into a wiped boot record or to hinder response, so this behavior warrants review when unattended and outside maintenance windows.

Reporting behind it

Related detections8 linkedT1529 — drag to rearrange

Linux auditd: Detect writes to /proc/sysrq-trigger or sysrq-related config for Magic SysRq abuse

Linux Process Creation: ESXi esxcli VM kill via vm process kill flags

Windows Suspicious Use of shutdown.exe to Log Off a User

Windows Suspicious Shutdown or Reboot via shutdown.exe Command-Line

macOS Shutdown/Reboot Command Execution via /shutdown, /reboot, or /halt Paths

Linux auditd: Shutdown, reboot, halt, poweroff or init-triggered system reboot

Windows PowerShell: Silence EmpireDNSAgent script matches DNS tunnel and remote shutdown/restart activity

Cisco AAA commands: shutdown or config-register changes to boot into alternate modes

Suspicious Forced System Shutdown or Restart via Shutdown Command (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1529 · 8 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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