Suspicious Security Process Enumeration via Tasklist And Findstr

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1057Process Discovery
- T1518.001Security Software Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects tasklist output piped through findstr to enumerate running processes, a discovery step CrazyHunter ransomware uses to locate security and endpoint tooling before disabling it. Filtering the process list for defensive products lets the operator plan evasion or termination. Chaining tasklist with findstr is uncommon in normal administrative use.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1685 — drag to rearrange

Antivirus Software Discovery via tasklist and findstr

Suspicious Security Software Discovery via tasklist and findstr (via process_creation)

Windows Defender Tampering via Set-MpPreference and Exclusions

Suspicious Windows Defender Real-Time Protection Disabled via Policy Registry by Cephalus Ransomware

Suspicious Microsoft Defender Path Exclusion of User Directories (via process_creation)

Malicious Windows Defender Tampering via Set-MpPreference (via process_creation)

Malicious Container Runtime Tampering via chmod on runc (via process_creation)

In-Memory AMSI or ETW Bypass in PowerShell (via process_creation)

Malicious Microsoft Defender Critical Security Components Disabled - Command (via process_creation)

Suspicious Security Process Enumeration via Tasklist And Findstr

Pivot detection · T1685 · 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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