Windows: Suspicious Parent Process Spawning cmd.exe
Alerts on cmd.exe executions that have a suspicious/atypical parent process among listed Windows binaries.
- Product
- windows
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- Tim Rauch, Elastic (idea) (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
- Published
- 2022-09-21
- Updated
- 2026-07-31
ATT&CK techniques
ExecutionRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule flags process creation events where cmd.exe is the spawned image and the parent process is one of several high-risk system executables. Attackers may use cmd.exe as a command interpreter to execute follow-on actions, making unusual parent-child relationships an important signal. It relies on Windows process creation telemetry that includes both the child Image and ParentImage paths, matched by case-specific path suffixes.
Reporting behind it
Changelog
v2- v2Candidate ingested via manual entry.2026-07-31
- v1No 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.
title: "Windows: Suspicious Parent Process Spawning cmd.exe"
id: 08294d6b-0134-4a07-98c2-3632033e2658
status: test
description: This rule flags process creation events where cmd.exe is the spawned image and the parent process is one of several high-risk system executables. Attackers may use cmd.exe as a command interpreter to execute follow-on actions, making unusual parent-child relationships an important signal. It relies on Windows process creation telemetry that includes both the child Image and ParentImage paths, matched by case-specific path suffixes.
references:
- https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/current/unusual-parent-process-for-cmd.exe.html
- https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/master/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_cmd_unusual_parent.yml
author: Tim Rauch, Elastic (idea), Huntrule Team
date: 2022-09-21
modified: 2023-12-05
tags:
- attack.execution
- attack.t1059
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection:
Image|endswith: \cmd.exe
ParentImage|endswith:
- \csrss.exe
- \ctfmon.exe
- \dllhost.exe
- \epad.exe
- \FlashPlayerUpdateService.exe
- \GoogleUpdate.exe
- \jucheck.exe
- \jusched.exe
- \LogonUI.exe
- \lsass.exe
- \regsvr32.exe
- \SearchIndexer.exe
- \SearchProtocolHost.exe
- \SIHClient.exe
- \sihost.exe
- \slui.exe
- \spoolsv.exe
- \sppsvc.exe
- \taskhostw.exe
- \unsecapp.exe
- \WerFault.exe
- \wermgr.exe
- \wlanext.exe
- \WUDFHost.exe
condition: selection
falsepositives:
- Unknown
level: medium
license: DRL-1.1
related:
- id: 4b991083-3d0e-44ce-8fc4-b254025d8d4b
type: derived