huntrule

Windows Process Creation: Uncommon Parent Process Launching link.exe

Alerts when link.exe is spawned with a parent process outside typical Visual Studio paths.

FreeReviewedSigma · Medium · v2
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published
2022-08-22
Updated
2026-07-31
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

  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. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule identifies process creations where the image ends with "link.exe" and the command line contains "LINK /", indicating use of the incremental linker. It flags cases where the parent process path is not within known Microsoft Visual Studio locations, which may indicate binary name hijacking or sideloading via an unexpected parent tool. Telemetry relies on Windows process creation events, including the child image path, command line, and parent image path.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious ViPNet Backdoor Loader via lumpdiag.exe Path Substitution
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Windows Process Creation: Uncommon Parent Process Launching link.exe
Pivot detection · T1218 · 9 related

Changelog

v2
  1. v2
    Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
  2. v1
    No changelog recorded for this version.2026-07-30

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