Event Triggered Execution: Accessibility Features T1546.008
Tactics: Privilege Escalation, Persistence
Adversaries may establish persistence and/or elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by accessibility features. Windows contains accessibility features that may be launched with a key combination before a user has logged in (ex: when the user is on the Windows logon screen). An adversary can modify the way these programs are launched to get a command prompt or backdoor without logging in to the system.
Events covered
9 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 1 | Process creation |
| Sysmon | Event ID 11 | FileCreate |
| Sysmon | Event ID 12 | RegistryEvent (Object create and delete) |
| Sysmon | Event ID 13 | RegistryEvent (Value Set) |
| Sysmon | Event ID 14 | RegistryEvent (Key and Value Rename) |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4656 | A handle to an object was requested. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4657 | A registry value was modified. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4103 | Payload Context: ContextInfo User Data: UserData. |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 22 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (27 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (121 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.
Exclusions (23 distinct)
Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 13 rules
- Persistence Via Sticky Key Backdoor
- Potential Privilege Escalation Using Symlink Between Osk and Cmd
- Potential Suspicious Activity Using SeCEdit
- Stickey key called CMD via command execution
- Stickey key called CMD via command execution (hash detection)
- Stickey key IFEO (Reg via command)
- Stickey key IFEO registry changed (Reg via Sysmon)
- Sticky key file created from CMD copy
- Sticky Key Like Backdoor Execution
- Sticky Key Like Backdoor Usage - Registry
- Sticky key sethc command for replacement by CMD
- Sticky key sethc file failed replacement
- Suspicious Debugger Registration Cmdline
Elastic 1 rule
Splunk 6 rules
- Command Line Utility Added to Accessibility Features (PowerShell)
- Command Line Utility Added to Accessibility Features (Sysmon)
- Command Line Utility Added to Accessibility Features (Windows Event Log)
- Overwriting Accessibility Binaries
- Suspicious Execution of Accessibility Tool Debuggers (Sysmon)
- Suspicious Execution of Accessibility Tool Debuggers (Windows Event Log)