Suspicious Velociraptor DFIR Agent Deployed as Service

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-30
Updated
2026-09-30

ATT&CK techniques

C2
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects installation of the Velociraptor endpoint agent as a Windows service, an abuse of a legitimate DFIR tool observed by the actor after SolarWinds Web Help Desk exploitation to maintain remote access. Threat actors increasingly repurpose Velociraptor for persistence and remote control because it blends in with defensive tooling. Unexpected Velociraptor service creation on a server that is not sanctioned for it warrants investigation.

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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.