Potential PowerShell Console History Access Attempt via History File

Status: experimental
Severity: medium
Log source: category process_creation, product windows
Author: Luc Génaux
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects potential access attempts to the PowerShell console history directly via history file (ConsoleHost_history.txt). This can give access to plaintext passwords used in PowerShell commands or used for general reconnaissance.

Known false positives

Legitimate access of the console history file is possible

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Credential Access	`T1552.001` Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files

Telemetry coverage

Provider	Record / event type
Sysmon	Event ID 1: Process creation
Security-Auditing	Event ID 4688: A new process has been created.

Rule body

title: Potential PowerShell Console History Access Attempt via History File
id: f4ff7323-b5fc-4323-8b52-6b9408e15788
status: experimental
description: |
    Detects potential access attempts to the PowerShell console history directly via history file (ConsoleHost_history.txt).
    This can give access to plaintext passwords used in PowerShell commands or used for general reconnaissance.
references:
    - https://0xdf.gitlab.io/2018/11/08/powershell-history-file.html
author: Luc Génaux
date: 2025-04-03
tags:
    - attack.credential-access
    - attack.t1552.001
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        CommandLine|contains:
            - 'ConsoleHost_history.txt'
            - '(Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate access of the console history file is possible
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    CommandLine|contains:
        - 'ConsoleHost_history.txt'
        - '(Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`CommandLine`	match	`(Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath` corpus 2 (sigma 1, elastic 1) `ConsoleHost_history.txt` corpus 2 (sigma 1, elastic 1)	`field:"CommandLine" kind:match`