Suspicious Scheduled Task Under NetFramework Path via PHANTOMPULSE

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1053.005Scheduled Task
Persistence
- T1053.005Scheduled Task
Priv Esc
- T1053.005Scheduled Task
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of scheduled tasks placed in the Microsoft Windows NetFramework folder with implant specific names such as DotNetSvcUpdateTask or CoreTask as used by the PHANTOMPULSE RAT in Elastic research. Registering tasks under this seldom populated system path with update themed names provides masqueraded persistence for the backdoor.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1053.005 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Latrodectus Payload Execution from Custom_update Directory (via process_creation)

Suspicious Scheduled Task Persistence Named SchedulerLsass via schtasks (via process_creation)

Malicious SYSTEM Persistence via Scheduled Task Running rundll32 at Startup (via process_creation)

Suspicious Per-Minute SYSTEM Scheduled Task With Highest Privileges

Suspicious Scheduled Task Executing Rundll32 DLL Export by Ordinal

Suspicious Scheduled Task Under NetFramework Path via PHANTOMPULSE

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.

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