Suspicious PowerShell Engine ImageLoad

Last updated 15 days ago on 2025-09-18
Created 5 years ago on 2020-11-17

About

Identifies the PowerShell engine being invoked by unexpected processes. Rather than executing PowerShell functionality with powershell.exe, some attackers do this to operate more stealthily.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Execution (TA0002)(opens in a new tab or window)

License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
New Terms Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-endpoint.events.library-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
host.os.type:windows and event.category:library and
  dll.name:("System.Management.Automation.dll" or "System.Management.Automation.ni.dll") and
  not (
    process.code_signature.subject_name:(
      "Microsoft Corporation" or
      "Microsoft Dynamic Code Publisher" or
      "Microsoft Windows"
    ) and process.code_signature.trusted:true and not process.name.caseless:"regsvr32.exe"
  ) and
  not (
    process.executable:(C\:\\Program*Files*\(x86\)\\*.exe or C\:\\Program*Files\\*.exe) and
    process.code_signature.trusted:true
  ) and
  not (
    process.executable: C\:\\Windows\\Lenovo\\*.exe and process.code_signature.subject_name:"Lenovo" and
    process.code_signature.trusted:true
  ) and
  not (
    process.executable: C\:\\Windows\\AdminArsenal\\PDQInventory-Scanner\\service-*\\exec\\PDQInventoryScanner.exe and
    process.code_signature.subject_name:"PDQ.com Corporation" and
    process.code_signature.trusted:true
  ) and
  not (
    process.executable: C\:\\Windows\\Temp\\\{*\}\\_is*.exe and
    process.code_signature.subject_name:("Dell Technologies Inc." or "Dell Inc" or "Dell Inc.") and
    process.code_signature.trusted:true
  ) and
  not (
    process.executable: C\:\\ProgramData\\chocolatey\\* and
    process.code_signature.subject_name:("Chocolatey Software, Inc." or "Chocolatey Software, Inc") and
    process.code_signature.trusted:true
  ) and
  not process.executable : (
    "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe" or
    "C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe"
  )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious PowerShell Engine ImageLoad 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).