Suspicious VS Code Tunnel Establishment for Covert Access (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1572Protocol Tunneling
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects code.exe creating a remote tunnel while auto-accepting the server license terms. Phantom Goblin abuses VS Code tunnels to maintain covert remote access and command channels.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1572 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious VS Code Tunnel Establishment for Covert Access (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1572 · 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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