Suspicious Registry SYSTEM Hive Dump via Reg Save (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-15
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects reg.exe saving the HKLM SYSTEM hive to a local file, a credential access technique used in the MS-SQL intrusion to extract secrets for offline processing. Saving the SYSTEM hive to a user writable path is rarely part of legitimate administration.

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Pivot detection · T1003.002 · 9 related

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