PowerShell Reading Batch/Command Files

Ariel Ropek@arielkr

•updated Mar 10, 2026•7•3•180

This rule detects PowerShell processes (powershell.exe, pwsh.exe, mbs.exe) that are executing commands to read the content of batch (.bat) or command (.cmd) files. This behavior has been observed in campaigns like Dead#Vax for self-parsing and in-memory payload extraction. The detection specifically looks for `Get-Content` or its alias `gc` within the PowerShell command line, targeting files with `.cmd` or `.bat` extensions.