huntrule

Suspicious Prefetch Deletion for Anti-Forensics

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-27
Updated
2026-08-28
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects deletion of files from the Windows Prefetch directory, an anti-forensic action The Gentlemen ransomware used to remove execution artifacts alongside Defender logs. Clearing Prefetch data is a deliberate attempt to hinder investigation and indicates active cleanup by an intruder.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1070.004 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Self-Delete Chain via Loopback Ping and File Deletion (via process_creation)
Suspicious Anti-Recovery Zeroing via fsutil setZeroData (via process_creation)
Suspicious Zone.Identifier Mark-of-the-Web Removal (via process_creation)
Suspicious Self-Deletion of Dropper via Command Line
Suspicious Self-Deletion via Choice Timer and Del Command via Cmd (via process_creation)
Suspicious Jump List AutomaticDestinations Deletion via Cmd (via process_creation)
Suspicious Self-Delete via cmd choice Timeout and Del
Suspicious Ping Loopback Delay Followed by File Deletion for Evasion
Suspicious Alternate Data Stream Self-Deletion via process_creation
Suspicious Prefetch Deletion for Anti-Forensics
Pivot detection · T1070.004 · 9 related

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