Suspicious Scheduled Task Creation Pointing to AppData (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-19
Updated
2026-08-28

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 action points to an executable inside the user AppData directory. Nokoyawa-linked loaders register an hourly task in AppData Roaming to maintain persistence for IcedID and follow-on tooling. Scheduled tasks launching binaries from AppData are unusual and a common persistence mechanism for commodity loaders.

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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.