Suspicious MSBuild LOLBin Spawning Script Interpreter (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-06
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects MSBuild.exe spawning PowerShell or cmd child processes which indicates inline task code execution abused as a signed binary proxy. Legitimate build automation rarely has MSBuild directly launching interactive script interpreters.

Related detections6 linkedT1127.001 — drag to rearrange
MSBuild Executing Non-Project File or Remote Payload
Antivirus Check and Remote Loader Retrieval in LNK Command Chain
Suspicious MSBuild Execution From Office or Archive Extraction Context (via process_creation)
Suspicious MSBuild Execution from Writable Directory (via process_creation)
In-Memory MSBuild Proxy Execution of a Project From a User-Writable Path (via process_creation)
Windows msbuild.exe Network Connections to Ports 80/443
Suspicious MSBuild LOLBin Spawning Script Interpreter (via process_creation)
Pivot detection · T1127.001 · 6 related

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