Suspicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Registry fDenyTSConnections and 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 Remote Desktop being switched on by setting fDenyTSConnections to zero or by opening the RDP firewall group through netsh advfirewall, the lateral-access preparation in the ELPACO-team intrusion before RDP movement to backup and file servers. Adversaries enable inbound RDP to pivot with stolen credentials, so these host-hardening reversals outside change control warrant investigation and can be filtered on approved administration hosts.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1021.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Firewall Rule Allowing SSH via New-NetFirewallRule During Ransomware

Suspicious Firewall Rule Added to Open RDP Port 3389 via netsh

Malicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Netsh

Suspicious RDP Connection File Opened From Download or Mail Directory via Process Creation

Suspicious iptables Port Redirect Rule via GRIMBOLT

Malicious RDP Tunneling via ngrok (via process_creation)

Suspicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Registry By Ransomware

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

Suspicious RDP Enablement via netsh Firewall Rule

Suspicious Remote Desktop Enablement via Registry fDenyTSConnections and 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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