Suspicious Scheduled Task Created to Run at System Startup

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-26
Updated
2026-09-26

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Priv Esc
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Defense Evasion

  5. Cred Access

  6. Discovery

  7. Lateral Movement

  8. Collection

  9. C2

  10. Exfiltration

  11. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects schtasks.exe creating a task triggered on system startup which APT41 uses to persist its implants across reboots. The onstart trigger runs the payload with elevated context before user interaction. It is important because startup triggered tasks are a durable and often overlooked persistence vector.

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Suspicious Scheduled Task Created to Run at System Startup
Pivot detection · T1053.005 · 9 related

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