Suspicious Network Reconnaissance via Advanced Port Scanner

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-29
Updated
2026-09-29

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of Advanced Port Scanner, a dual-use network discovery tool frequently abused by ransomware operators to map internal hosts and services before lateral movement. It was observed in RMM-driven intrusions culminating in Akira ransomware. Presence of this tool on servers or endpoints often indicates hands-on-keyboard reconnaissance.

Related detections9 linkedT1046 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Nmap Scanner Probe URIs in HTTP Requests (via webserver)
Suspicious Internet Scanning for Docker and Kubelet Ports via masscan
Suspicious Fscan Internal Network Scanner Execution (via process_creation)
Possible Network Service Scanning via Nmap or Masscan (via process_creation)
Malicious Anonymous Login - Domain Specified (via security)
Suspicious Network Scanning Tool Execution
Malicious RDP Discovery Performed on Multiple Hosts (via rdp)
Malicious Anonymous Access Performed to Multiple Targets (via security)
Malicious Network Login Performed to Multiple Targets (via security)
Suspicious Network Reconnaissance via Advanced Port Scanner
Pivot detection · T1046 · 9 related

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