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 Batch Script Execution Spawned by wscript via VBScript
Suspicious DLL Sideload of profiler16.dll (via image_load)
Malicious PUBLOAD Fake Windows Update C2 Request via Proxy (via proxy)
Suspicious MicrosoftEdgeUpdate Launched with Dat Config File
Suspicious GoogleUpdate Binary Executing From Non-Standard Path (via process_creation)
Suspicious MpClient DLL Sideload from Non-Defender Path
Suspicious DLL Load From ProgramData Intel Sideload Path (via image_load)
Suspicious DLL Sideload of uevmonitor via SoftwareLicencing (via image_load)
Malicious DLL Side-Loading via 7z or clink Loaders
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.