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Windows Registry RunMRU PowerShell or WMIC Execution Command Indicators

Alerts on RunMRU registry entries showing PowerShell (encoding/invocation) or WMIC shadowcopy/process call usage.

FreeReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
registry_set
Author
Ahmed Farouk, Nasreddine Bencherchali (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published
2024-11-01
Updated
2026-07-30
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

  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 flags Windows registry changes under the Explorer RunMRU key where command history entries contain PowerShell or specific WMIC usage. Such activity can indicate an attacker attempting to execute or stage malicious commands through common Windows run patterns. The detection relies on registry telemetry capturing the RunMRU TargetObject path and command strings in the registry Details field.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Script Interpreter Spawned by Explorer via ClickFix Run Dialog (via process_creation)
Suspicious PowerShell Download Cradle via ClickFix Fake CAPTCHA (via process_creation)
Suspicious PowerShell EncodedCommand Spawned From Command Shell via Process Creation
Suspicious Script Download via Curl and PowerShell by Dohdoor
Malicious Mass Hyper-V Virtual Machine Shutdown via PowerShell by Kraken Ransomware
Suspicious PowerShell WebClient DownloadFile of Archive Payload (UAT-7237)
Suspicious SharePoint Worker Process Spawning Command Interpreter via ToolShell
Malicious Emmenhtal JavaScript Loader Spawning Encoded PowerShell
Suspicious Python Interpreter Launching Encoded PowerShell via subprocess
Windows Registry RunMRU PowerShell or WMIC Execution Command Indicators
Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

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