Suspicious Outbound Network Connection from explorer.exe

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1055.002Portable Executable Injection
Defense Evasion
- T1055.002Portable Executable Injection
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1071Application Layer Protocol
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects explorer.exe initiating an outbound network connection to an external host, anomalous behavior consistent with the DOUBLELOADER backdoor injecting into explorer.exe and beaconing to command-and-control. explorer.exe does not normally make direct external connections, so this pattern indicates process injection and covert C2.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1071 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Outbound Network Connection from explorer.exe

Pivot detection · T1071 · 9 related

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

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