Remote Access Tool - TacticalRMM Agent Registration to Potentially Attacker-Controlled Server

Status: experimental
Severity: medium
Log source: category process_creation, product windows
Author: Ahmed Nosir (@egycondor)
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects TacticalRMM agent installations where the --api, --auth, and related flags are used on the command line. These parameters configure the agent to connect to a specific RMM server with authentication, client ID, and site ID. This technique could indicate a threat actor attempting to register the agent with an attacker-controlled RMM infrastructure silently.

Known false positives

Legitimate system administrator deploying TacticalRMM

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Command & Control	`T1105` Ingress Tool Transfer `T1219` Remote Access Tools

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: Remote Access Tool - TacticalRMM Agent Registration to Potentially Attacker-Controlled Server
id: 2db93a3f-3249-4f73-9e68-0e77a0f8ae7e
status: experimental
description: |
    Detects TacticalRMM agent installations where the --api, --auth, and related flags are used on the command line.
    These parameters configure the agent to connect to a specific RMM server with authentication, client ID, and site ID.
    This technique could indicate a threat actor attempting to register the agent with an attacker-controlled RMM infrastructure silently.
references:
    - https://github.com/amidaware/tacticalrmm
    - https://apophis133.medium.com/powershell-script-tactical-rmm-installation-45afb639eff3
author: Ahmed Nosir (@egycondor)
date: 2025-05-29
tags:
    - attack.command-and-control
    - attack.t1219
    - attack.t1105
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|contains: '\TacticalAgent\tacticalrmm.exe'
        CommandLine|contains|all:
            - '--api'
            - '--auth'
            - '--client-id'
            - '--site-id'
            - '--agent-type'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate system administrator deploying TacticalRMM
level: medium

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

selection

Stage 1: `selection`

selection:
    Image|contains: '\TacticalAgent\tacticalrmm.exe'
    CommandLine|contains|all:
        - '--api'
        - '--auth'
        - '--client-id'
        - '--site-id'
        - '--agent-type'

Indicators

These rows show field, operator, and value matches.

Field	Kind	Values	Search
`CommandLine`	match	`--agent-type` `--api` `--auth` `--client-id` `--site-id`	`field:"CommandLine" kind:match`
`Image`	match	`\TacticalAgent\tacticalrmm.exe`	`field:"Image" kind:match value:"\TacticalAgent\tacticalrmm.exe"`