Suspicious IIS Worker Process Spawning Encoded PowerShell via Gladinet Exploitation

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
- T1190Exploit Public-Facing Application
Execution
- T1059.001PowerShell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the IIS worker process w3wp.exe spawning PowerShell with an encoded command argument, a behavior observed during active exploitation of the Gladinet CentreStack and Triofox insecure cryptography vulnerability where ViewState deserialization leads to code execution. Attackers abuse the hardcoded machineKey to forge ViewState payloads that execute PowerShell from the web application context. This chain indicates web-facing remote code execution and should be treated as a likely server compromise.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious IIS Worker Process Spawning Encoded PowerShell via Gladinet Exploitation

Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 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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