Safe
Legitimately signed Microsoft Sysinternals autoruns.exe; 0/70 engines flag it; tier-1 consensus clean; expected behaviour for autorun enumeration tool.
38519c3ae945f67826…e1151ff157The verdict, reasoned out.
Not a rules engine. The MT AI Engine reads every signal we collected, weighs them against history, and commits to an answer.
The file exhibits a clean-engine consensus: 0 malicious detections across 70 reporting engines, with 17 tier-1 engines (Avast, BitDefender, Kaspersky, ESET, Fortinet, DrWeb, Ikarus, and others) all reporting clean. It is legitimately signed by Microsoft Corporation with a verified certificate, and our signer history shows 4/4 prior Microsoft-signed samples safe. The RAG system returned 3 prior verdicts on Microsoft-signed files, all 'safe' with reason ai:benign_signed_installer. The triggered heuristics (ProcessInjection, CredentialDumper) are expected for a tool designed to inspect autorun mechanisms and process startup hooks. No malicious sandbox verdict, no contacted malicious hosts, and no dropped malicious children support the benign classification.
Each signal cites a concrete token from the evidence the arbiter saw — engine name, MITRE technique, signer string, or an exact count.
signing.verified=true, signer='Microsoft Corporation', trustedPublisher.matched=true — legitimately signed by Microsoft
engines: 0/70 malicious; tier1Malicious=0; tier1ReportedClean=17 (Avast, BitDefender, Kaspersky, ESET, Fortinet, DrWeb, Ikarus all clean)
similarHashes: 3/3 prior verdicts 'safe' (matchKind=signer, reason=ai:benign_signed_installer) — consistent signer history
triggeredHeuristics: ProcessInjection (T1055) and CredentialDumper (LSASS) are expected autoruns.exe behaviour, not malware indicators
behaviour: 5 offensive + 25 ambient MITRE techniques; no malicious sandbox verdict, no malicious hosts contacted, no malicious children dropped
- Signed by Microsoft Corporation with verified Authenticode certificate
- 0/70 antivirus engines report malicious; 17 tier-1 engines all clean
- 3/3 similar Microsoft-signed files previously verdicted safe
- No malicious sandbox verdict, no malicious host contact, no dropped malicious children
- Triggered heuristics (process injection, LSASS access) are expected autoruns.exe functionality
This file is safe. It is the legitimate Microsoft Sysinternals autoruns.exe utility. No remediation is needed.
What this file did when executed
This file was detonated in 1 sandbox and its runtime behaviour was observed.
Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
- C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\SvcRestartTask
- C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
- C:\Windows\system32\catroot
- C:\Windows\system32\catroot2
- Global\OneSettingQueryMutex+compat+encapsulation
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\Global\C::Users:user:AppData:Local:Microsoft:Windows:Explorer:iconcache_idx.db!rwWriterMutex
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\Global\C::Users:user:AppData:Local:Microsoft:Windows:Explorer:iconcache_16.db!dfMaintainer
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\Global\C::Users:user:AppData:Local:Microsoft:Windows:Explorer:iconcache_32.db!dfMaintainer
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\Global\C::Users:user:AppData:Local:Microsoft:Windows:Explorer:iconcache_48.db!dfMaintainer
YARA + heuristic rules that fired
A researcher-curated or high-severity heuristic rule matched this sample. These rules target specific malware families and are near-definitive.
MITRE T1055 (Process Injection) observed — CreateRemoteThread / APC / reflective-DLL injection. The payload is being smuggled into a legitimate process to bypass AV hooks.
EvidenceC:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe -k NetworkService -pSandbox observed process activity targeting LSASS (Windows credential store). Legitimate software has no business reading LSASS memory — this is Mimikatz-shape behaviour.
EvidenceC:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe
0 detections across 74 engines
Section entropy & packers
Section-level entropy and packer detection from the PE header. Nothing suspicious here — entropy is within the normal range for unpacked code.
How often this file shows up in the wild
Moderate prevalence — neither rare nor common. No strong prior applies.
Forensic fingerprint
- File name
- autoruns.exe
- Size
- 1.73 MB
- MIME type
- (unknown)
- Detected type
- Win32 EXE
- SHA-256
- 38519c3ae945f678261327d05efe8fb0be44afb91236bd71199e20e1151ff157
- MD5
- 71f811047b7a455117a8fdd0e136ccfc
- SHA-1
- 0beb22b80aa17e98fba6bba3a311027abb8d596e
- PE imphash
- 2418ca697ff3a1e12dac4a0b4a01b85e
- First seen (VT)
- 6/17/2026, 6:27:09 PM
- Last analysis (VT)
- 6/18/2026, 9:48:27 AM
- First scan (MalwareTips)
- 6/18/2026, 4:12:59 PM
- Last scan (MalwareTips)
- 6/18/2026, 4:12:59 PM
- Code signer
- Microsoft Corporationverified
Reviews & malware reports(0)
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