Suspicious Outbound Network Connection from Explorer Process

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
network_connection
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-10
Updated
2026-09-10

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  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 the Windows explorer.exe process establishing outbound network connections to external hosts which is anomalous because Explorer does not normally initiate internet beacons. In the Gamaredon campaign the Remcos backdoor injected into explorer.exe to blend command and control traffic with a trusted process.

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Suspicious Outbound Network Connection from Explorer Process
Pivot detection · T1055 · 9 related

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