Anomalous Windows Process Creation

Last updated 4 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 5 years ago on 2020-03-25

About

Identifies unusual parent-child process relationships that can indicate malware execution or persistence mechanisms. Malicious scripts often call on other applications and processes as part of their exploit payload. For example, when a malicious Office document runs scripts as part of an exploit payload, Excel or Word may start a script interpreter process, which, in turn, runs a script that downloads and executes malware. Another common scenario is Outlook running an unusual process when malware is downloaded in an email. Monitoring and identifying anomalous process relationships is a method of detecting new and emerging malware that is not yet recognized by anti-virus scanners.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionRule Type: MLRule Type: Machine LearningTactic: Persistence
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
Users running scripts in the course of technical support operations of software upgrades could trigger this alert. A newly installed program or one that runs rarely as part of a monthly or quarterly workflow could trigger this alert.
License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Machine Learning
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Anomalous Windows Process Creation in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(opens in a new tab or window).