LOLBin download
Detects living-off-the-land download/execution: certutil URL cache download, bitsadmin transfer, or mshta pulling a remote/script payload — signed…
What it detects
Detects living-off-the-land download/execution: certutil URL cache download, bitsadmin transfer, or mshta pulling a remote/script payload — signed Windows binaries abused to fetch or proxy second-stage code.
MITRE ATT&CK mapping
False positives and triage
certutil and bitsadmin have administrative uses; certutil -hashfile and certificate ops are not flagged. Judge by the URL, the destination path, and what ran the download.
The rule
Declarative YAML read by the detection engine — data, never executed. Confidence 70%. Source: rules/windows/lolbin_download.yaml, licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
id: windows.execution.lolbin_download
version: 1.0.0
status: stable
severity: high
confidence: 0.7
platforms: [windows]
mitre_techniques: [T1105, T1218]
description: |
Detects living-off-the-land download/execution: certutil URL cache download, bitsadmin
transfer, or mshta pulling a remote/script payload — signed Windows binaries abused to
fetch or proxy second-stage code.
match:
event_category_any: [process, script]
command_line_contains_any:
- "certutil -urlcache"
- "certutil.exe -urlcache"
- "-urlcache -split -f"
- "bitsadmin /transfer"
- "bitsadmin /addfile"
- "mshta http"
- "mshta.exe http"
- "mshta vbscript:"
- "mshta javascript:"
false_positive_guidance: |
certutil and bitsadmin have administrative uses; certutil -hashfile and certificate ops are
not flagged. Judge by the URL, the destination path, and what ran the download.
Related detections
Run this rule on your own logs — offline
KIROSEC runs this rule and the rest of the library over Windows, Linux, macOS and cloud audit logs on the analyst's own machine. Every alert links to the events that raised it, and nothing leaves the device.