Suspicious Scheduled Task Persistence Referencing AppData Roaming
- Product
- windows
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-05-05
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
Execution → Priv EscRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects schtasks.exe creating a task whose action points to an executable staged under the user AppData Roaming directory, the persistence pattern used by TrickBot after copying itself into that location. Malware favors AppData Roaming because it is user writable and survives across sessions. Scheduled tasks launching binaries from a roaming profile path are uncommon for legitimate software.
Reporting behind it
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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