Suspicious Proxy Execution via pcalua

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1218System Binary Proxy Execution
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the Program Compatibility Assistant pcalua being used with the -a switch to launch another executable. SideWinder abused pcalua to proxy the execution of a payload from a temporary directory, breaking the parent-child chain and evading detection.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1218 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious git.exe Proxy Execution of Script Payload in APT-C-60 2026 Chain (via process_creation)

Suspicious git.exe Executing Non-Repository Script Payload (via process_creation)

Malicious MSDT Execution Spawned by Office Application via Follina (via process_creation)

Malicious MSDT Command Line Invoking Follina Payload (via process_creation)

Suspicious File Download via certutil urlcache

Suspicious Reconnaissance Spawned by wuauclt

Suspicious AutoHotkey Execution Masquerading as Realtek Audio in Sound Diagnostics Path (via process_creation)

Suspicious More_eggs ie4uinit Copy to AppData Microsoft Folder

Suspicious Microsoft.NodejsTools.PressAnyKey LOLBAS Proxy Execution

Suspicious Proxy Execution via pcalua

Pivot detection · T1218 · 9 related

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

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →