Suspicious Impacket Remote Execution Tool Usage via process_creation

ATT&CK techniques

Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1021.002SMB/Windows Admin Shares
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects command lines invoking the Impacket suite scripts smbexec, psexec, wmiexec, secretsdump and ntlmrelayx used for remote code execution and credential dumping. BlackCat operators used the Munchkin utility alongside these Impacket tools to move laterally and harvest credentials, so their execution outside sanctioned admin activity signals hands-on intrusion.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1021.002 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Remote Service Execution via PsExec (via process_creation)

Suspicious RemCom Service Named Pipe for Lateral Movement (via pipe_created)

Suspicious WMIC Remote Process Creation for Lateral Movement

Suspicious File Copy to Administrative SMB Share via net.exe (via process_creation)

Malicious PsExec Service Binary Execution from Windows Directory via services.exe (via process_creation)

Malicious Remote Command Execution via smbexec Output Redirection Pattern

Malicious Lateral Movement via PsExec File-List Target

Suspicious Remote Process Creation and Admin Share Copy via WMIC and Xcopy

Malicious REF5961 PsExec-Style Remote Service Execution from Windows Help Directory via Process Creation

Suspicious Impacket Remote Execution Tool Usage via process_creation

Pivot detection · T1021.002 · 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 →