Suspicious Process Execution From Recycle Bin Directory

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-07-15
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Initial Access → Lateral Movement
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Execution

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of an executable located inside a Recycle Bin directory such as RECYCLER.BIN or $Recycle.Bin. In a case analyzed by Kaspersky a CEFHelper.exe payload was launched from RECYCLER.BIN on a USB drive to enable DLL sideloading. Legitimate software is not executed from the Recycle Bin so this location strongly indicates staging of a hidden payload for defense evasion.

Related detections9 linkedT1574.001 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious RoboForm Signed Binary Executed From Non-Standard Path (via process_creation)
Malicious dal_keepalives.dll Sideloaded By Signed Binary (via image_load)
Suspicious Cortex XDR Binary Sideloading winutils.dll (via image_load)
Suspicious CoinLoader DLL Sideload From Z-1-36-81 Directory (via image_load)
Suspicious shfolder.dll Sideloading via VMware net-service Binary
Suspicious AtlasRAT Loader Artifacts in Public Documents (via file_event)
Suspicious Commonly-Hijacked DLL Loaded From a User-Writable Path (via image_load)
Suspicious Impact of 'SMOKEDHAM Backdoor' with MSDTC Service Privilege Escalation via Command Line (via process_creation)
Malicious DLL ServerLevelPluginDll Command Installation (via process_creation)
Suspicious Process Execution From Recycle Bin Directory
Pivot detection · T1574.001 · 9 related

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