Windows RDP Logon Using Localhost IP Address

ATT&CK techniques

Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1021.001Remote Desktop Protocol
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule flags successful Windows logon events (EventID 4624) with LogonType 10 where the source IP is localhost (127.0.0.1 or ::1). Localhost-sourced RDP sessions are often suspicious because they can indicate tunneling or proxying to make the connection appear local. It relies on Windows Security auditing telemetry capturing the logon event details, including LogonType and IpAddress.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1021.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Enabling of Remote Desktop via fDenyTSConnections Registry by DeadLock Ransomware

Suspicious Plink SSH Tunnel Execution (via process_creation)

Suspicious Remote Desktop Enabled via fDenyTSConnections Registry by Sandworm

Suspicious RDP Shadow Session Started - Native (via rdp)

Malicious RDP BlueeKeep Connection Closed - CVE-2019-0708 (via rdp)

Obfuscated RDP Tunneling Configuration Enabled for Port Forwarding (via process_creation)

Malicious RDP Shadow Session Configuration Enabled - Registry (via registry_event)

Malicious RDP Tunneling (via rdp)

Suspicious Denied RDP Login with Valid Credentials (via security)

Windows RDP Logon Using Localhost IP Address

Pivot detection · T1021.001 · 9 related

Changelog

v2

v2
Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
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.

windows-rdp-logon-from-localhost-ip-127-0-0-1-1-51e33403

title: Windows RDP Logon Using Localhost IP Address
id: 393f5b5f-bcd4-49d8-b714-aea11d1c5fc3
status: test
description: This rule flags successful Windows logon events (EventID 4624) with LogonType 10 where the source IP is localhost (127.0.0.1 or ::1). Localhost-sourced RDP sessions are often suspicious because they can indicate tunneling or proxying to make the connection appear local. It relies on Windows Security auditing telemetry capturing the logon event details, including LogonType and IpAddress.
references:
  - https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2019/01/bypassing-network-restrictions-through-rdp-tunneling.html
  - https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/master/rules/windows/builtin/security/account_management/win_security_rdp_localhost_login.yml
author: Thomas Patzke, Huntrule Team
date: 2019-01-28
modified: 2022-10-09
tags:
  - attack.lateral-movement
  - car.2013-07-002
  - attack.t1021.001
logsource:
  product: windows
  service: security
detection:
  selection:
    EventID: 4624
    LogonType: 10
    IpAddress:
      - ::1
      - 127.0.0.1
  condition: selection
falsepositives:
  - Unknown
level: high
license: DRL-1.1
related:
  - id: 51e33403-2a37-4d66-a574-1fda1782cc31
    type: derived

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