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MediumSigmaHQ Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)

Certificate Exported Via PowerShell

Detects calls to cmdlets that are used to export certificates from the local certificate store. Threat actors were seen abusing this to steal private keys from compromised machines.

Detection logic

Detection requirements

Platform: Linux macOS Network Devices Windows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.
Log source product: windows
Log source category: process_creation

Known benign triggers

Legitimate certificate exports by administrators. Additional filters might be required.

References

Links the source published beside this detection. Reference is the link the source wrote, unmodified. Class is decided by this catalogue from the host and path, not stated by the source. Cited by counts published detections citing the same resource, including this one, and the sources beneath it count the repositories this catalogue ingests, which is not the same as independent research.
Reference	Class	Cited by
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/pki/export-pfxcertificate?view=windowsserver2022-ps	Product documentation	4from 2 sources
us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/analysis-reports/ar21-112a	Unclassified	2
www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/security/breaking-the-chain-defending-against-certificate-services-abuse.html	Security research	4

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