Suspicious MOVEit w3wp Child Process Execution via process_creation

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-07-23
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Persistence
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Execution

  4. Priv Esc

  5. Defense Evasion

  6. Cred Access

  7. Discovery

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the MOVEit Transfer IIS worker process w3wp.exe spawning command interpreters, which is the expected behavior when a dropped ASPX web shell is executed. During CVE-2023-34362 exploitation the attacker used the web shell under w3wp to run follow-on commands, so interpreter children of this worker are a strong web exploitation signal.

Related detections9 linkedT1190 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Command Shell Spawned by SQL Server via Process Creation (via process_creation)
Possible GoAnywhere MFT Exploitation via Tomcat Spawning Discovery Commands
Suspicious Command Shell Spawned by MSSQL Server Process Indicating Webshell
Malicious MOVEit Transfer Exploitation via X-siLock HTTP Headers (via webserver)
Malicious IIS w3wp Worker Spawning Command Interpreter via SharePoint Web Shell
Suspicious Single-Character Named Executable Launched by Web Server Process (via process_creation)
Malicious MOVEit human2.aspx Web Shell Dropped in wwwroot (via file_event)
Malicious IIS Worker Process Spawning PowerShell via Gladinet CentreStack Exploit
Exchange Worker Process Spawning Command Shell via OWASSRF
Suspicious MOVEit w3wp Child Process Execution via process_creation
Pivot detection · T1190 · 9 related

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