Suspicious Program Execution From a Mounted ISO or Disk Image (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-04
Updated
2026-09-04

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Cred Access

  7. Discovery

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a program launching from a mounted ISO, IMG or VHD volume, the delivery pattern adversaries use to bypass Mark-of-the-Web so downloaded payloads run without SmartScreen or Office protections. Container-file delivery is a recurring initial-access and defense-evasion behavior in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report, favored by loaders arriving through phishing. Detecting execution from a freshly mounted image surfaces the smuggled payload before it detonates.

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