tool

esentutl S0404

Type: tool
Platform: Windows
Created: 3 September 2019
Last modified: 28 September 2023

esentutl is a command-line tool that provides database utilities for the Windows Extensible Storage Engine.[1]

Techniques29th pct

Tactics41st pct

Threat groupsunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.

Standing S0404

Reach is how much of ATT&CK this tool touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 825 ATT&CK software entries only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.

Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID	Refs
	Detects suspicious local connections via a named pipe to the AD FS configuration database (Windows Internal Database). (...)	Generic	test	pipe_created	windows	Sysmon	Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g	2021-10-08	2023-11-30	1ea13e8c-03ea-409b-877d-ce5c3d2c1cb3
	Detects DNS queries made by "AppInstaller.EXE". (...)	Generic	test	dns	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	frack113	2021-11-24	2023-11-09	7cff77e1-9663-46a3-8260-17f2e1aa9d0a
	Detects execution of GfxDownloadWrapper.exe with a URL as an argument to download file.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, oscd.community	2020-10-09	2023-10-18	eee00933-a761-4cd0-be70-c42fe91731e7
	An attempt to export an AWS EC2 instance has been detected. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Transfer Data to Cloud Account	-	low	Diogo Braz	2020-04-16	2022-10-05	54b9a76a-3c71-4673-b4b3-2edb4566ea7b
	Detects file creation events linked to the Axios NPM supply chain compromise. (...)	Emerging	experimental	file_event	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	b7cb840c-11f6-47f7-b3ef-5524739c9077
	Detects file creation events linked to the Axios NPM supply chain compromise on macOS devices. (...)	Emerging	experimental	file_event	macos	-	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	2db0458c-05c9-4069-a26f-77becd9c8c13
	Detects the Linux-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency by Axios NPM package, including payload download via curl and detached execution using nohup and python3. (...)	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Unix Shell Python Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	0a23a62d-c5b3-468b-a072-25064a9a8c87
	Detects the macOS-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency in Axios NPM Package, including AppleScript execution via osascript, payload download, permission modification, execution, and cleanup.	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	macos	-	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter AppleScript Unix Shell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	a09ee860-31b3-4586-8a68-0ebd74ce0e5f
	Detects the specific Windows execution chain and process tree associated with the Axios NPM supply chain compromise. (...)	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	f6c27ecc-d890-4452-80e6-2e274a10e097
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of `bitsadmin.exe` with the `transfer` parameter to download a remote object. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Execution, Persistence, Stealth BITS Jobs Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Michael Haag, Sittikorn S	2021-03-30	2026-10-02	80630ff4-8e4c-11eb-aab5-acde48001122
	Detects execution of Chromium based browser in headless mode	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Hide Artifacts Hidden Window Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-12	—	ef9dcfed-690c-4c5d-a9d1-482cd422225c
Splunk	This analytic detects file copy activity on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Collection Data from Cloud Storage Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	4d7e8f3a-9c2b-4e6f-8a1d-5b9c7e2f4a8c
Splunk	This analytic detects file copy operations to remote locations on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 Protocol Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	8a9e5f2b-6d4c-4e7f-9b3a-1c8d7f5e2a9b
	Collect pertinent data from the configuration files	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Discovery Account Discovery Local Account Collection Data from Local System Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Credentials In Files	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-11	2023-01-04	cd072b25-a418-4f98-8ebc-5093fb38fe1a
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of curl commands with insecure flags within the Cisco Isovalent environment. (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	-	Cisco	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2026-01-05	2026-10-02	c16c4899-d3f7-461b-92c2-cc0ef5758855
Splunk	This analytic identifies the use of Chromium-based browsers (like Microsoft Edge) running in headless mode with the `--dump-dom` argument. (...)	Generic	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-07-01	2026-09-22	cd0e816f-f67d-4dbe-a153-480b546e867e
Splunk	This analytic detects unexpected outbound network connections initiated by known webserver processes such as `httpd.exe`, `nginx.exe`, or `tomcat.exe` to common file sharing or public content hosting services like GitHub, Discord CDN, Transfer.sh, or Pastebin. (...)	Generic	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-07-01	2026-09-22	1984f997-3b49-4d4b-a7e9-dc5dbf88370e
Splunk	The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Command and Control Non-Standard Port Privilege Escalation, Stealth Process Injection Command and Control Remote Access Tools Lateral Movement Remote Services	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	d85c05c8-42c0-4e4a-87e7-4e1bb3e844e3
Splunk	The following analytic detects outbound connections to commonly abused file sharing and pastebin-style hosting domains. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Exfiltration to Cloud Storage Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Resource Development Obtain Capabilities Tool Command and Control Proxy External Proxy	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	f7e5e792-d907-46c1-a58e-4ff974dc462a
Splunk	The following analytic detects file transfers flagged as malware that occurred over non-standard ports (other than 80 and 443). (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Command and Control Non-Standard Port	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-09	2026-09-22	f26445a8-a6a2-4855-bec0-0c39e52e5b8f
Splunk	The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	8c15183e-2e70-4db4-86c3-88f8d9129b66
Splunk	The following analytic detects file downloads that were classified as malware by Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Exploitation for Client Execution Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-09	2026-09-22	3cc93f52-5aa6-4b7f-83b9-3430b1436813
Splunk	The following analytic detects repeated malware file downloads initiated by the same internal host (src) within a short time window. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-09	2026-09-22	aeff2bb5-3483-48d4-9be8-c8976194be1e
Splunk	This analytic identifies Snort intrusion signatures that have been triggered by ten or more distinct internal IP addresses within a one-hour window. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-16	2026-05-13	a4c76d0a-56b6-44be-814b-939746c4d406
Splunk	The following analytic detects outbound connections initiated by command-line tools such as curl or wget. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation Scheduled Task/Job Cron	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	173a1cb9-1814-4128-a9dc-f29dade89957
	Various protocols maybe used to put data on the device for exfil or infil	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility Collection Data Staged Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	5e51acb2-bcbe-435b-99c6-0e3cd5e2aa59	-
Splunk	This analytic detects the configuration of TFTP services on Cisco IOS devices that could be used to exfiltrate sensitive configuration files. (...)	Generic	stable	configuration_change	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service	CVE-2018-0171	medium	Bhavin Patel, Michael Haag, Splunk	2025-08-21	2026-05-13	1abce487-f480-4d5f-a551-01de0bece0bd
	Detects a suspicious command line execution that includes an URL and AppData string in the command l (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community	2019-01-16	2021-11-27	1ac8666b-046f-4201-8aba-1951aaec03a3
	Files with well-known filenames (sensitive files with credential data) copying	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping Security Account Manager NTDS	-	high	Teymur Kheirkhabarov, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community	2019-10-22	2024-06-04	e7be6119-fc37-43f0-ad4f-1f3f99be2f9f
	Detects "BugCheck" errors indicating the system rebooted due to a crash, capturing the bugcheck code, dump file path, and report ID.	Generic	experimental	-	windows	WinEventLog System	Collection Data from Local System Credential Access OS Credential Dumping Security Account Manager	-	medium	Jason Mull	2025-05-12	—	882fbe50-d8d7-4e29-ae80-0648a8556866
	Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping NTDS	-	high	frack113	2022-01-12	—	afd12fed-b0ec-45c9-a13d-aa86625dac81
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of shadow copies using Vssadmin or Wmic. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping NTDS	-	medium	Patrick Bareiss, Splunk	2019-12-11	2026-10-09	eb120f5f-b879-4a63-97c1-93352b5df844
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of shadow copies using "wmic" or "Powershell" commands. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping NTDS	-	medium	Patrick Bareiss, Splunk	2019-12-11	2026-10-09	2ed8b538-d284-449a-be1d-82ad1dbd186b
	Files with well-known filenames (parts of credential dump software or files produced by them) creati (...)	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory Security Account Manager NTDS LSA Secrets	-	high	Teymur Kheirkhabarov, oscd.community	2019-11-01	2025-10-25	8fbf3271-1ef6-4e94-8210-03c2317947f6
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of the copy command to dump credentials from a shadow copy. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping NTDS	-	medium	Patrick Bareiss, Splunk	2020-04-29	2026-10-09	d8c406fe-23d2-45f3-a983-1abe7b83ff3b
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of a symlink to a shadow copy, which may indicate credential dumping attempts. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping NTDS	-	medium	Patrick Bareiss, Splunk	2020-04-29	2026-10-09	c5eac648-fae0-4263-91a6-773df1f4c903
	Adversaries can use curl to download payloads remotely and execute them. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution	-	high	Sreeman, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2020-01-13	2024-03-05	21dd6d38-2b18-4453-9404-a0fe4a0cc288
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of the curl utility where the command line includes percent-encoded characters and explicit file output options (such as -o or --output). (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	windows · linux	CrowdStrike · Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2026-03-03	2026-05-13	9a8d5516-4c5e-11ef-9d42-acde48001122
	Detects a curl process start on linux, which indicates a file download from a remote location or a s (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-09-15	—	ea34fb97-e2c4-4afb-810f-785e4459b194
	Detects a curl process start on Windows, which could indicates a file download from a remote locatio (...)	Hunting	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-07-05	2023-02-21	bbeaed61-1990-4773-bf57-b81dbad7db2d
	Detects the usage of curl.exe, KeyScramblerLogon, or other non-standard/suspicious processes used to create Autoit3.exe. (...)	Emerging	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Micah Babinski	2023-10-15	—	1a433e1d-03d2-47a6-8063-ece992cf4e73
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of Certify or Certipy tools to enumerate Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) environments. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Credential Access Steal or Forge Authentication Certificates	-	medium	Steven Dick	2023-07-28	2026-05-13	e6d2dc61-a8b9-4b03-906c-da0ca75d71b8
	Detects the use of wget to download content to a suspicious directory	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Joseliyo Sanchez, @Joseliyo_Jstnk	2023-06-02	—	cf610c15-ed71-46e1-bdf8-2bd1a99de6c4
Splunk	The following analytic detects suspicious file downloads by the Telegram application on a Windows system. (...)	Generic	stable	create_stream_hash	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-05-07	2026-05-13	58194e28-ae5e-11eb-8912-acde48001122
	Detects download of certain file types from hosts with dynamic DNS names (selected list)	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Dynamic Resolution Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2017-11-08	2023-05-18	195c1119-ef07-4909-bb12-e66f5e07bf3c
	Conti recommendation to its affiliates to use esentutl to access NTDS dumped file. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping NTDS	-	medium	sam0x90	2021-08-06	2022-10-09	7df1713a-1a5b-4a4b-a071-dc83b144a101
	One way Qbot steals sensitive information is by extracting browser data from Internet Explorer and M (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	frack113	2022-02-13	2024-03-05	6a69f62d-ce75-4b57-8dce-6351eb55b362
Splunk	This detection identifies access to sensitive system and configuration files on an ESXi host, including authentication data, service configurations, and VMware-specific management settings. (...)	Generic	stable	-	esxi	VMware ESXi · VMware	Collection Data from Local System Credential Access OS Credential Dumping /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow	-	medium	Raven Tait, Splunk	2025-07-11	2026-05-13	6fa0073d-6ca0-4f93-913d-fb420c9de15b	-
Splunk	This detection identifies the use of a remote tool to download virtual machine disk files from a datastore. (...)	Generic	stable	-	esxi	VMware ESXi · VMware	Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Raven Tait, Splunk	2025-07-11	2026-05-13	2e155547-aaac-49d3-b0ef-ceabc31fd364	-
	Detects executable access via webdav6. (...)	Generic	test	-	-	HTTP · Zeek	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	SOC Prime, Adam Swan	2020-05-01	2021-11-27	aac2fd97-bcba-491b-ad66-a6edf89c71bf

Title

Description

esentutl S0404

esentutl MITRE reference S0404

Standing S0404

Reach

Coverage

esentutl detections S0404