Suspicious Sysinternals EULA Acceptance Registry Write Linked to INC Ransomware

PremiumReviewedSigma · Low · v1
Product
windows
Category
registry_set
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-05
Updated
2026-10-05

ATT&CK techniques

Execution
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the EulaAccepted registry value being written under a Sysinternals product key, indicating first-run command-line use of a Sysinternals tool as seen in INC ransomware intrusions. Because operators use PsExec and similar tools with the -accepteula flag, an unexpected EULA write on a server can reveal attacker tool staging, though administrators also trigger it legitimately.

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Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.