Suspicious PowerShell Enabling OpenSSH Server With Attacker Keys via process_creation

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1219Remote Access Tools
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects PowerShell commands that reference the sshd service together with an authorized_keys file which indicates an attacker enabling the built-in Windows OpenSSH server for remote access. The DeepSeek trojan used a base64 PowerShell script to start the SSH service and plant attacker public keys for persistent tunneling. Turning a host into an SSH server with foreign keys is a strong backdoor indicator.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious PowerShell Enabling OpenSSH Server With Attacker Keys via process_creation

Pivot detection · T1219 · 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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