Suspicious Svchost Spawned by Non-Services Parent (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1055Process Injection
Defense Evasion
- T1055Process Injection
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects svchost.exe launched by a parent other than the Windows Service Control Manager services.exe. Legitimate svchost instances are started by services.exe so any other parent suggests masquerading or code injected into a fake svchost. An anomalous svchost ancestry is a well-known indicator of process masquerading and injection.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious Svchost Spawned by Non-Services Parent (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1055 · 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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