Suspicious PowerShell Engine ImageLoad

Last updated a month ago on 2025-12-01
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)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

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

Query
text code block:
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.name: (_is*.exe or "DellInstaller_x64.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.name: "Docker Desktop Installer.exe" and process.code_signature.subject_name:"Docker 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(external, opens in a new tab or window).