Individual skill
hunting-for-registry-persistence-mechanisms
Hunt for registry-based persistence mechanisms including Run keys, Winlogon modifications, IFEO injection, and COM hijacking in Windows environments.
internal/tools/skills/data/threat-hunting/hunting-for-registry-persistence-mechanisms/SKILL.md
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- cybersecurity Repository topic
- security Repository topic
- bug-bounty Repository topic
- automation Repository topic
- autonomous-pentesting Repository topic
- ai-agent Repository topic
- ai-security Repository topic
- ethical-hacking Repository topic
- golang Repository topic
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- threat-hunting Declared skill tag
- mitre-attack Declared skill tag
- registry Declared skill tag
- persistence Declared skill tag
- windows Declared skill tag
- t1547 Declared skill tag
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- security Derived category
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SKILL.mdcore · 4,498 bytes
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# Hunting For Registry Persistence Mechanisms
## When to Use
- When proactively hunting for indicators of hunting for registry persistence mechanisms in the environment
- After threat intelligence indicates active campaigns using these techniques
- During incident response to scope compromise related to these techniques
- When EDR or SIEM alerts trigger on related indicators
- During periodic security assessments and purple team exercises
## Detection Gaps & Validation
- **Key coverage blind spots:** Run vs RunOnce vs RunOnceEx vs `Winlogon\Shell`/`Userinit` vs IFEO (`Image File Execution Options\<exe>\Debugger`, `GlobalFlag`+`SilentProcessExit`) vs COM hijack (`HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{...}\InprocServer32`). Sysmon EID 13 fires only for paths in your RegistryEvent filter — default configs routinely miss IFEO and per-user `Classes`, the #1 false-negative.
- **Hive scope:** logged-off users' HKCU lives in unmounted NTUSER.DAT, so live `reg query` misses it — hunt offline hives too.