Suspicious Local Account Creation and Privileged Group Addition via Net.EXE (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1098Account Manipulation
- T1136.001Local Account
Priv Esc
- T1098Account Manipulation
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of a local user account or addition of an account to a privileged local group through net.exe or net1.exe. Account manipulation for persistence and privilege escalation features in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report, letting adversaries establish durable, legitimate-looking access. Detecting local account and administrators-group changes at the command line surfaces backdoor-account activity.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1098 — drag to rearrange

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Linux: New user created with UID=0 or GID=0/10/27 indicating privileged group access

Cisco AAA local account and remote authentication changes

Suspicious Login Shell Assigned to Service Account games on Linux

Suspicious Local Administrator Account Creation via Net Command via Process Creation (via process_creation)

Suspicious dMSA Object Access with Migration AccessMask

Windows HackTool Execution: GoldenDMSA.exe Launch with Directory Manipulation Parameters

Suspicious Local Account Creation and Privileged Group Addition via Net.EXE (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1098 · 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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