Suspicious OpenSSH Reverse Tunnel Over HTTPS Port (Chaos Ransomware)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-11
Updated
2026-09-11

ATT&CK techniques

Lateral Movement → C2
  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. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects use of the OpenSSH client to establish a reverse tunnel with the -R option forwarding traffic over port 443. The Chaos ransomware group abuses OpenSSH reverse tunneling to blend remote access and command-and-control into HTTPS traffic. Reverse tunnels over common web ports are used to evade network monitoring and maintain covert access.

Related detections9 linkedT1572 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Reverse SSH Tunnel Exposing Local SSH via process_creation
Suspicious OpenSSH Reverse Tunnel Creation via Process Creation
Port Forwarding via SSH.EXE on Windows
Suspicious DNS Query to Dynamic DNS and Tunneling Providers Abused by RATs
Suspicious SSH Reverse Tunnel Over DNS Port
Suspicious Remote Apple Events Enablement via systemsetup
Suspicious vCenter VAMI SSH Enable via appliance access API
Suspicious OpenSSH Reverse Tunnel Establishment via process_creation
Suspicious LocalToNet Tunneling Tool Execution
Suspicious OpenSSH Reverse Tunnel Over HTTPS Port (Chaos Ransomware)
Pivot detection · T1572 · 9 related

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