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.

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange
Malicious ActiveMQ Exploitation Java Spawning PowerShell Downloader (via process_creation)
Malicious In-Memory Payload Execution via PowerShell DownloadString (via process_creation)
Suspicious Remote Script Download and Execution via iwr Piped to iex
Suspicious Hidden PowerShell Download and Archive Expansion
Malicious PowerShell IEX DownloadString One-Liner
Malicious Cloud Atlas PowerShell Download Cradle via IEX WebClient (via process_creation)
Suspicious PowerShell Downloader Spawned by Batch Script (via process_creation)
Suspicious Curl Download and Script Execution Chain via Command Line
Suspicious PowerShell Download of scrss or ekrn Masquerading Scripts
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.