Suspicious Scheduled Task Creation for Kong RAT Persistence

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-22
Updated
2026-09-22

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 creation of a scheduled task whose name begins with SimpleActivityScheduleTimer, a fixed prefix used by the Kong RAT for persistence in the SEO poisoning campaign. The randomized GUID suffix varies while the descriptive prefix remains constant. Scheduled tasks matching this naming scheme reestablish the implant across reboots.

Related detections9 linkedT1053.005 — drag to rearrange
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Malicious Koi Loader Scheduled Task Masquerading as Firefox Agent (via process_creation)
Suspicious Per-Minute Scheduled Task Persistence via schtasks
Malicious Scheduled Task Masquerading as OneDrive Security Task via Command Line
Suspicious Scheduled Task Running VBScript on Short Recurring Interval via Command Line
Suspicious Scheduled Task Creation Running VBScript for Persistence via Command Line
Suspicious Scheduled Task Under NetFramework Path via PHANTOMPULSE
Suspicious Scheduled Task Creation for Kong RAT Persistence
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.