↳ GitHub sourceAnalytics ruleHigh
Identify Mango Sandstorm powershell commands
Description
'The query below identifies powershell commands used by the threat actor Mango Sandstorm.
Reference: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/08/25/mercury-leveraging-log4j-2-vulnerabilities-in-unpatched-systems-to-target-israeli-organizations/'
- Rule type
- Scheduled
- Version
- 1.0.5
- Query frequency
- 1d
- Query period
- 1d
- Trigger
- gt 0
Declared MITRE coverage
Declared sources
Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.
Connectors
Data types
KQL query
Original query, unchanged.
(union isfuzzy=true
(SecurityEvent
| where EventID == 4688
| where Process has_any ("powershell.exe","powershell_ise.exe","pwsh.exe") and CommandLine has_cs "-exec bypass -w 1 -enc"
| where CommandLine contains_cs "UwB0AGEAcgB0AC0ASgBvAGIAIAAtAFMAYwByAGkAcAB0AEIAbABvAGMAawAgAHsAKABzAGEAcABzACAAKAAiAHAA"
| extend DvcHostname = Computer, ProcessId = tostring(ProcessId), ActorUsername = Account
),
(DeviceProcessEvents
| where FileName =~ "powershell.exe" and ProcessCommandLine has_cs "-exec bypass -w 1 -enc"
| where ProcessCommandLine contains_cs "UwB0AGEAcgB0AC0ASgBvAGIAIAAtAFMAYwByAGkAcAB0AEIAbABvAGMAawAgAHsAKABzAGEAcABzACAAKAAiAHAA"
| extend DvcHostname = DeviceName, ProcessId = tostring(InitiatingProcessId), ActorUsername = strcat(AccountDomain, @"\", AccountName)
),
(imProcessCreate
| where Process has_any ("powershell.exe","powershell_ise.exe","pwsh.exe") and CommandLine has_cs "-exec bypass -w 1 -enc"
| where CommandLine contains_cs "UwB0AGEAcgB0AC0ASgBvAGIAIAAtAFMAYwByAGkAcAB0AEIAbABvAGMAawAgAHsAKABzAGEAcABzACAAKAAiAHAA"
| extend ProcessId = tostring(TargetProcessId)
)
)
| extend AccountName = tostring(split(ActorUsername, "\\")[0]), AccountNTDomain = tostring(split(ActorUsername, "\\")[1])
| extend HostName = tostring(split(DvcHostname, ".")[0]), DomainIndex = toint(indexof(DvcHostname, '.'))
| extend HostNameDomain = iff(DomainIndex != -1, substring(DvcHostname, DomainIndex + 1), DvcHostname)
Declared entities
Related content
Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.
Source provenance
GitHubDisplayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.
- Commit
9800e51↗- Source identifier
ce74dc9a-cb3c-4081-8c2f-7d39f6b7bae1
Additional source files 1
Detections/MultipleDataSources/powershell_MangoSandstorm.yamlsource ↗GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING
Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC