title: Potentially Suspicious Execution Of PDQDeployRunner
id: 12b8e9f5-96b2-41e1-9a42-8c6779a5c184
related:
    - id: d679950c-abb7-43a6-80fb-2a480c4fc450
      type: similar
status: test
description: Detects suspicious execution of "PDQDeployRunner" which is part of the PDQDeploy service stack that is responsible for executing commands and packages on a remote machines
references:
    - https://twitter.com/malmoeb/status/1550483085472432128
author: Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)
date: 2022-07-22
modified: 2024-05-02
tags:
    - attack.execution
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_parent:
        ParentImage|contains: '\PDQDeployRunner-'
    selection_child:
        # Improve this section by adding other suspicious processes, commandlines or paths
        - Image|endswith:
              # If you use any of the following processes legitimately comment them out
              - '\bash.exe'
              - '\certutil.exe'
              - '\cmd.exe'
              - '\csc.exe'
              - '\cscript.exe'
              - '\dllhost.exe'
              - '\mshta.exe'
              - '\msiexec.exe'
              - '\regsvr32.exe'
              - '\rundll32.exe'
              - '\scriptrunner.exe'
              - '\wmic.exe'
              - '\wscript.exe'
              - '\wsl.exe'
        - Image|contains:
              - ':\ProgramData\'
              - ':\Users\Public\'
              - ':\Windows\TEMP\'
              - '\AppData\Local\Temp'
        - CommandLine|contains:
              - ' -decode '
              - ' -enc '
              - ' -encodedcommand '
              - ' -w hidden'
              - 'DownloadString'
              - 'FromBase64String'
              - 'http'
              - 'iex '
              - 'Invoke-'
    condition: all of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate use of the PDQDeploy tool to execute these commands
level: medium