Suspicious Script Host Spawned by cmd for DarkGate Execution

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.005Visual Basic
- T1059.007JavaScript
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects cscript or wscript being launched as a child of cmd.exe which matches the DarkGate execution chain where a command shell invokes a script host to run malicious VBScript or JScript. This parent child relationship is unusual in normal operations and points to scripted malware execution.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.005 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Script Host Execution of Decoy-Named JavaScript Dropper (PS1Bot)

Suspicious Wscript Execution of JavaScript From AppData Local Temp via Process Creation (via process_creation)

Windows AppLocker Audit-Mode Events Indicate Files Would Have Been Blocked

Windows Wscript/Cscript Executes Files with Uncommon Non-Script Extensions

Windows WScript/CScript File Write With Script Extensions to Temp or Startup Paths

Windows AppLocker Blocked Application, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App Execution

Windows Process Creation: Suspicious Children Spawned by HTML Help (hh.exe)

Windows: Alert on Suspicious HH.EXE Process Execution

Windows: Koadic Command Prompt Invocation with /q /c chcp

Suspicious Script Host Spawned by cmd for DarkGate Execution

Pivot detection · T1059.005 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →