IIS component registered through AppCmd configuration change

Siemphony@siemphonymediumT1505.004unverified

Matches AppCmd.exe being used to register an ISAPI filter, ISAPI extension or native/managed module against the IIS configuration — the administrative-tool half of AN0184, which also lists direct DLL drop and module load as observables but those need a watch on %windir%\System32\inetsrv\ or a diff of loaded modules in w3wp.exe that Sigma's single-event model cannot express against the file_event and image_load logsources in this brief without also matching every ordinary IIS content deployment. AppCmd is chosen instead because the configuration verbs that actually wire in a component — set config against the isapiFilters/globalModules sections, or add module — are literal, stable strings on its command line, so the selector cannot be defeated by a version-suffixed binary or a GUI wrapper the way a raw DLL-drop watch would be. There is no "add filter" verb in AppCmd; ISAPI filters are registered by writing the isapiFilters section, which is why that section name rather than a verb carries the filter arm here. The gate is appcmd.exe itself, so registering the component through the IIS configuration API (Microsoft.Web.Administration from PowerShell or C#) or by hand-editing applicationHost.config is invisible to this rule. UNVERIFIED AS AUTHORED — derived from MITRE ATT&CK DET0068, not hand-written and not tested by its author. Any lab result is on this rule's own page.Full description

The 4 SIEM queries below are previews produced by Siemphony’s own translator, not pySigma, and none has been executed against a real backend — review before you deploy.

detection.yml

Sentinel · KQL

Run this as a search.

DeviceProcessEvents| where (FolderPath endswith "\\appcmd.exe" and (ProcessCommandLine contains "isapiFilters" or ProcessCommandLine contains "globalModules" or ProcessCommandLine contains "system.webServer/modules" or ProcessCommandLine contains "add module"))

Splunk · SPL

Run this as a search.

index=* (Image="*\\appcmd.exe" AND (CommandLine="*isapiFilters*" OR CommandLine="*globalModules*" OR CommandLine="*system.webServer/modules*" OR CommandLine="*add module*"))

Elastic · ES|QL

Run this as a search.

FROM logs-*| WHERE (TO_LOWER(process.executable) LIKE "*\\\\appcmd.exe" AND (TO_LOWER(process.command_line) LIKE "*isapifilters*" OR TO_LOWER(process.command_line) LIKE "*globalmodules*" OR TO_LOWER(process.command_line) LIKE "*system.webserver/modules*" OR TO_LOWER(process.command_line) LIKE "*add module*"))

Wazuh · XML rule

Deploy to your manager — this is a rule, not a search.

<group name="sigma,windows,process_creation,">  <!-- Rule ids must be unique on your manager; 100000+ is the user range. -->  <rule id="100000" level="7">    <!-- Set <if_sid> to the decoder/base rule for windows so this only evaluates relevant events. -->    <field name="Image" type="pcre2">(?i)\\appcmd\.exe$</field>    <field name="CommandLine" type="pcre2">(?i)(isapiFilters|globalModules|system\.webServer/modules|add module)</field>    <description>IIS component registered through AppCmd configuration change</description>    <mitre>      <id>T1505.004</id>    </mitre>  </rule></group>

At a glance

Logsource: process_creation / windows
Level: medium
Category: registry_persistence
Sigma status: experimental
Backends: 4 of 4 rendered
Updated: 30 Aug 2026
Rule ID: 64605540-de84-479b-81bd-42485c1f81fe

ATT&CKT1505.004

T1505.004IIS Components

ATT&CK® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. These mappings are the rule author’s, and are neither reviewed nor endorsed by MITRE.

Lessonregistry persistence

registry persistence

01 · What this rule detects

Registry values written so that attacker code is launched by Windows itself — Run and RunOnce keys, Image File Execution Options debuggers, LSA security and notification packages, COM server hijacks, AppInit_DLLs, Winlogon shell and userinit entries, and the accessibility shims that hang off IFEO. Each of these is a different key with the same purpose: something the operating system reads and executes without anyone asking it to.

02 · Telemetry you need

Sysmon EventID 12, 13 and 14 (registry key create/delete, value set, key rename) with TargetObject, Details and Image — Sysmon logs no registry activity unless the config explicitly includes these paths, so an empty result usually means the config, not the environment
Security 4657 (registry value modified) — requires Audit Registry and a SACL on each key you care about; without the SACL it produces nothing at all
Process creation for the writers: reg.exe, regedit.exe, PowerShell Set-ItemProperty and New-ItemProperty, and WMI StdRegProv
Sysmon EventID 11 (FileCreate) for the executable or DLL the value points at, which is usually written moments before
Autoruns-style periodic inventory of the same keys, as a backstop for hosts where registry auditing is not collected

03 · How the logic works

Every rule here is two halves: the key path says which persistence mechanism is in play, the value data says what will run. Matching only the path gives you every installer in the estate; matching the data — an executable under a user-writable directory such as AppData, ProgramData or Temp, a path with no directory at all, a scripting host, a base64 blob — is what makes it an alert. Two coverage traps are worth memorising. First, persistence exists in both hives: a rule scoped to HKLM misses every per-user Run key, and Sysmon reports the user hive as HKU\<SID>\... rather than HKCU, so a rule written with HKCU matches nothing. Second, the 32-bit view under Wow6432Node is a separate path. For the narrower mechanisms — an IFEO Debugger value, an appended LSA package, an AppInit DLL — the existence of the write is itself the signal and no data condition is needed, which makes them the quietest and best rules in the category.

04 · Common false positives

Application installers and updaters registering themselves at logon — Chrome and Edge update, Adobe, Dropbox, OneDrive and similar
Enterprise management and Group Policy preferences writing Run values across the fleet
Password-filter and credential-provider products that legitimately register LSA notification packages
Backup, EDR and disk-encryption agents registering COM servers and Winlogon components during install
Developer tooling setting IFEO values for debugging, and imaging or provisioning workflows that rewrite these keys wholesale

05 · Detection maturity

Tier 1 — starting point: Matches writes to the Run and RunOnce keys.
Tier 2 — tuned: Covers the full set of autostart keys across both hives and the 32-bit view, conditioned on the value data pointing somewhere user-writable, with known publishers excluded.
Tier 3 — correlated: Correlates the write with the creation of the file it points at, the process that performed the write, and how rare that value is across the fleet.

Tuning & false positivesexperimental · 3 declared

experimental (current stage)
test
stable

Written and reasoned about, but not yet run against real telemetry. Expect to tune it before trusting it.

Tuning tips

Alert on where the value points, not on the key being touched — the same Run key is written by every installer you own
Treat IFEO Debugger, GlobalFlag with silent-exit monitoring, AppInit_DLLs and LSA package changes as near-zero-volume rules and give them their own higher severity
Cover HKLM, the per-user hive as your telemetry actually spells it, and the Wow6432Node view in the same rule, then check the rule fires for all three
Exclude by the signature or full path of the writing process where the event carries it, rather than by the value name
Baseline what exists across the fleet — persistence that appears on one host and nowhere else is the finding

Declared by the author

Release-management and CI/CD agents (Web Deploy, Octopus Deploy, Azure DevOps release tasks) that call appcmd.exe to register a legitimate ISAPI module or filter as part of an application deployment — this is the loudest source in any environment that automates IIS deploys and looks identical to the abuse case.
Windows feature and product installers (URL Rewrite, Application Request Routing, ASP.NET registration via aspnet_regiis) that invoke appcmd set config against globalModules to wire in their own bundled module immediately after MSI or platform-installer setup.
Hardening and compliance scripts that reapply a baseline IIS configuration, including re-adding an approved filter or module entry, on a schedule or at image-build time.

Noise check0 of 30 fired

Fires on none of the 30 ordinary behaviours the baseline holds for this log type. That is not a precision guarantee: it means only not caught by these 30 behaviours, and the next ordinary behaviour nobody wrote down may still match.

Run live against 65 hand-written events of ordinary corporate activity — backup agents, software distribution, patching, helpdesk scripts, EDR. It says nothing about how often the rule would fire in production, which is the number that actually exhausts an analyst.

Verification1 run

Not verified

Siemphony benign baseline
completed
Siemphony IR · 3 Sept 2026
No events matched, so this run proves nothing either way.

Test it yourselfin your browser

Runs here in your browser against public attack recordings. A preview — not the verification badge.

Recordings of T1505.004, evaluated against their process_creation events.

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IIS component registered through AppCmd configuration change

The detection

detection.yml

Sentinel · KQL

Splunk · SPL

Elastic · ES|QL

Wazuh · XML rule

Community

Verdicts from engineers who deployed it