| 1 | --- |
| 2 | title: "SOC Playbook: Detecting and Removing Suspicious Scheduled Tasks" |
| 3 | description: Investigate scheduled task persistence alerts and remove malicious tasks. |
| 4 | --- |
| 5 | |
| 6 | **Video:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xHxhSBROEc |
| 7 | |
| 8 | ## Goal |
| 9 | Identify suspicious scheduled tasks used for persistence and remove them safely. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | ## When to use |
| 12 | - Alerts indicating scheduled task creation/modification |
| 13 | |
| 14 | ## Prereqs |
| 15 | - Endpoint telemetry (Windows) + investigation pivots |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ## Procedure (high level) |
| 18 | 1) Triage the alert and identify the host/user/process context |
| 19 | 2) Enumerate scheduled tasks on the endpoint |
| 20 | 3) Identify suspicious task(s) and associated binaries/commands |
| 21 | 4) Contain/remediate and document |
| 22 | |
| 23 | ## Validation |
| 24 | - Suspicious task removed/disabled |
| 25 | - Follow-on telemetry confirms no re-creation |