Suspicious HiddenGh0st Rootkit Driver QAssist Written to System32 (via file_event)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
file_event
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-06-24
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the creation of the QAssist.sys rootkit driver in the System32 directory as used by the HiddenGh0st malware to hide its files and activity. A newly written kernel driver with this name is a strong indicator of the rootkit component.

Related detections9 linkedT1014 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Koske Userland Rootkit Installation via ld.so.preload (via file_event)
Malicious TeamTNT prochider Rootkit Deployment as Shared Object (via file_event)
Malicious perfctl Rootkit Library Drop via ld.so.preload (via file_event)
Malicious Userland Rootkit Persistence via ld.so.preload on Linux
Malicious VoidLink Rootkit Dropper Artifacts via Filesystem (via file_event)
Suspicious LD_PRELOAD Library Injection via PUMAKIT Userland Rootkit
Malicious VoidLink Pinned eBPF Map in BPF Filesystem (via file_event)
Malicious ShadowGuard eBPF Rootkit Control via Magic Kill Signal (via process_creation)
Malicious VoidLink Kernel Module Load via Insmod (via process_creation)
Suspicious HiddenGh0st Rootkit Driver QAssist Written to System32 (via file_event)
Pivot detection · T1014 · 9 related

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