Suspicious Remote Desktop Enablement via netsh Firewall Rule (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1021.001Remote Desktop Protocol
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects netsh being used to open the firewall for Remote Desktop connections. Black Basta enables inbound RDP to move laterally and maintain interactive access, so a netsh firewall change referencing Remote Desktop is an indicator of lateral movement preparation.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1021.001 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious RDP Enablement via fDenyTSConnections Registry Modification [Huntress] #2

Suspicious Firewall Rule Added to Open RDP Port 3389 via netsh

Suspicious SSH Reverse Tunnel Execution via process_creation

Suspicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Registry fDenyTSConnections

Malicious PsExec SYSTEM Interactive Shell Execution (via process_creation)

Suspicious Enabling of Remote Desktop via fDenyTSConnections Registry by DeadLock Ransomware

Suspicious Plink SSH Tunnel Execution (via process_creation)

Suspicious Remote Desktop Enablement via netsh Firewall Rule (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1021.001 · 9 related

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

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