Suspicious Service Persistence WinSystemHost via Process Creation

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-07
Updated
2026-10-07

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Defense Evasion

  6. Cred Access

  7. Discovery

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of a Windows service named WinSystemHost via sc.exe. Threat actors attacking industrial organizations register this service to persist a malicious loader across reboots, masquerading as a benign system host process.

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Suspicious Kernel Driver Written to AppData Temp Linked to RansomHub EDR Killers
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Suspicious Service Persistence WinSystemHost 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.