Suspicious Service Creation Masquerading as FortiGateUpdate (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1543.003Windows Service
Priv Esc
- T1543.003Windows Service
Defense Evasion
- T1036.004Masquerade Task or Service
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects sc.exe creating a service named FortiGateUpdate whose binary path launches svchost with a service grouping switch. This behavior was observed in Cyber Partisans activity that masqueraded a DNSCat2 tunneling service as a Fortinet update to blend into industrial environments. Detecting the masqueraded service creation exposes the persistence stage of the intrusion.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious Service Creation Masquerading as FortiGateUpdate (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1543.003 · 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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