Suspicious Sleep and Hibernate Disabled via Powercfg for Mining (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Impact

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
- T1496Resource Hijacking

What it detects

This rule detects powercfg being used to zero standby and hibernate timeouts so the host never sleeps, keeping a cryptominer running continuously. Observed in the Elastic Security Labs fake-installer Monero mining operation where power settings are altered to maximize resource hijacking uptime.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1496 — drag to rearrange

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Malicious PureMiner Persistence Executable in AppData HResult Folder

Suspicious T-Rex CoinMiner Binaries in Windows NT Program Files Folder (via file_event)

Malicious Cryptocurrency Miner Execution (via process_creation)

Possible Cryptomining Beacon to c3pool Mining Domain

Suspicious Sleep and Hibernate Disabled via Powercfg for Mining (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1496 · 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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