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

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1014Rootkit
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
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.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1014 — drag to rearrange

Malicious ld.so.preload Hijack Loading libcext by Auto-Color (via process_creation)

Suspicious Loading of Malicious Netfilter Kernel Module for Traffic Signaling

Malicious Kernel Driver Load from User AppData Directory

Malicious Kernel Driver Service Registration for ProjectConfiguration Rootkit

Malicious Vulnerable Driver Mapping via KDU

Suspicious Kernel Module Load From World Writable Directory on Linux

Suspicious Kernel Module Load Or Unload For Rootkit Deployment via PUMAKIT

Suspicious Fileless Execution From Memory File Descriptor via PUMAKIT

Malicious ABYSSWORKER EDR-Killer Driver Load via smuol.sys

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.

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →