huntrule

Suspicious Office Application Spawning Mshta With Remote HTA

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-10
Updated
2026-09-10
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion

  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a Microsoft Office application spawning mshta.exe with a remote HTTP or HTTPS URL. Threat actors using MacroPack-built documents launched mshta from Office to fetch remote HTA payloads that loaded Havoc Brute Ratel and PhantomCore. Office spawning mshta to pull a remote HTA is a phishing execution chain that bridges a malicious macro to a fileless second stage.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1218.005 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious MSHTA VBScript WScript Shell Execution
Suspicious Remote HTA Payload Execution via MSHTA
Malicious Shell Spawned by Mshta Delivery (via process_creation)
Malicious Kimsuky Remote HTA Execution via URL Shortener (via process_creation)
ClickFix Paste-Jacking Execution of mshta Retrieving Remote Payload (via process_creation)
Suspicious mshta Execution of Remote HTA Payload
Suspicious Mshta Executed From Non-System Path (via process_creation)
Malicious Forfiles Proxy Execution Launching PowerShell and MSHTA in PEAKLIGHT Chain (via process_creation)
Malicious mshta.exe Spawning bitsadmin via ClickFix Phantom Meet
Suspicious Office Application Spawning Mshta With Remote HTA
Pivot detection · T1218.005 · 9 related

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