Suspicious Scheduled Task Persistence Referencing AppData Roaming

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-05
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 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.

Related detections9 linkedT1053.005 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Scheduled Task Running PowerShell Every Minute (via process_creation)
Agent Tesla Persistence via Realtek Named Scheduled Task Batch
Suspicious Scheduled Task Creation Named test3 by Salt Typhoon
Suspicious MeshAgent Persistence via Scheduled Task MeshUserTask (via process_creation)
Malicious PureMiner Persistence Executable in AppData HResult Folder
Suspicious Kimsuky Scheduled Task Impersonating Google Update CGI (via process_creation)
Malicious Scheduled Persistent Task with SYSTEM Privileges Creation (via process_creation)
Malicious Interactive Privileged Shell Triggered by Schedule Task - Deprecated (via process_creation)
Suspicious Scheduled Task Creation with Command Line (via process_creation)
Suspicious Scheduled Task Persistence Referencing AppData Roaming
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.