Suspicious PowerShell Remote Download and Execution via Invoke-WebRequest

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.001PowerShell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1105Ingress Tool Transfer
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a PowerShell command that downloads a file with Invoke-WebRequest and then runs it with Start-Process which the MUT-8694 campaign chains inside malicious npm and PyPI packages to fetch and launch a second stage on Windows hosts.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious PowerShell WebClient Download of Executable Payload

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Suspicious PowerShell Download Cradle to Blogspot (via process_creation)

Suspicious Hidden PowerShell WebClient DownloadFile Cradle

Suspicious PowerShell Download Cradle with Spoofed User-Agent via MSIX

Malicious PowerShell In-Memory Download Cradle via Script Block (via ps_script)

Suspicious node.exe Execution Spawned by PowerShell

Suspicious PowerShell Download Cradle via IEX and DownloadString (via process_creation)

Suspicious PowerShell Remote Download and Execution via Invoke-WebRequest

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.

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