Suspicious PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest Download of Executable Payload

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-08-13
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → C2
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects PowerShell using Invoke-WebRequest to download an executable payload to disk. UAT-6382 used this technique after web-shell access to pull additional tooling from staging infrastructure over a non-standard port, a common ingress-tool-transfer step preceding beacon deployment.

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Suspicious PowerShell Remote File Download Cmdlets (via ps_script)
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Suspicious PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest Download of Executable Payload
Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

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