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IIS Worker Process Spawning Shell (Web Shell Initial Access)

Spirals Initial Access Sentinel
MITRE ATT&CK
Web Shell
Data Source
DeviceProcessEvents
Date Added
2026-09-18
Last Updated
2026-09-18
Source
BleepingComputer (bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-spirals-ransomware-encrypts-victim-network-in-under-24-hours), security.com/threat-intelligence/ransomware-spirals-extortion
What This Detects
Spirals compromised an internet-facing IIS server via an ASP.NET web shell as initial access. w3wp.exe spawning a shell process is a strong web-shell indicator.
Query
DeviceProcessEvents
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "w3wp.exe"
| where FileName in~ ("cmd.exe","powershell.exe","powershell_ise.exe","cscript.exe","wscript.exe")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, FileName, ProcessCommandLine, AccountName

Hunting queries are starting points for threat hunting & detection engineering — validate table/column names against your own workspace schema and tune thresholds before turning any of these into a production alert rule.