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Windows SCCM Smsexec Spawned a Suspicious Child Process

The following analytic detects shells, scripting engines, and common post-exploitation utilities spawned as child processes of smsexec.exe. smsexec.exe is the core SCCM SMS Executive service process and has no…

Description

The following analytic detects shells, scripting engines, and common post-exploitation utilities spawned as child processes of smsexec.exe. smsexec.exe is the core SCCM SMS Executive service process and has no legitimate reason to launch interactive shells or scripting interpreters. An attacker who plants a malicious adsource.dll in the SCCMProvider bin\X64 directory will obtain code execution in the SCCM service context, typically resulting in a SYSTEM-level child process being spawned under smsexec.exe. If confirmed malicious, this activity represents successful exploitation of the SCCM SMS Executive service and should be treated as a full host compromise.

Detection logic

Detection requirements

Platform
ContainersLinuxmacOSWindows

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.

Log source category
crowdstrike_processrollup2sysmon_eventid_1windows_event_log_security_4688

Known benign triggers

  • smsexec.exe is not expected to spawn interactive shells or scripting engines under normal operating conditions. False positives are unlikely. Validate the full command line and file hash of any match before tuning.

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