Remote Access Tool - AnyDesk Incoming Connection

Status: experimental
Severity: medium
Log source: category network_connection, product windows
Author: @d4ns4n_ (Wuerth-Phoenix)
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects incoming connections to AnyDesk. This could indicate a potential remote attacker trying to connect to a listening instance of AnyDesk and use it as potential command and control channel.

Known false positives

Legitimate incoming connections (e.g. sysadmin activity). Most of the time I would expect outgoing connections (initiated locally).

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Command & Control	`T1219.002` Remote Access Tools: Remote Desktop Software

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 3: Network connection

Rule body

title: Remote Access Tool - AnyDesk Incoming Connection
id: d58ba5c6-0ed7-4b9d-a433-6878379efda9
status: experimental
description: |
    Detects incoming connections to AnyDesk. This could indicate a potential remote attacker trying to connect to a listening instance of AnyDesk and use it as potential command and control channel.
references:
    - https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1219/T1219.md#atomic-test-2---anydesk-files-detected-test-on-windows
    - https://asec.ahnlab.com/en/40263/
author: '@d4ns4n_ (Wuerth-Phoenix)'
date: 2024-09-02
modified: 2025-02-24
tags:
    - attack.persistence
    - attack.command-and-control
    - attack.t1219.002
logsource:
    category: network_connection
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\AnyDesk.exe'
            - '\AnyDeskMSI.exe'
        Initiated: 'false' # If the network connection is initiated remotely (incoming), the field is set to false.
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate incoming connections (e.g. sysadmin activity). Most of the time I would expect outgoing connections (initiated locally).
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    Image|endswith:
        - '\AnyDesk.exe'
        - '\AnyDeskMSI.exe'
    Initiated: 'false'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`Image`	ends_with	`\AnyDesk.exe` corpus 5 (sigma 5) `\AnyDeskMSI.exe` corpus 4 (sigma 4)	`field:"Image" kind:ends_with`
`Initiated`	eq	`false` corpus 2 (sigma 1, kusto 1)	`field:"Initiated" kind:eq value:"false"`