dsdbutil.exe

Each abuse is LOLBAS's category and the options and words it uses; the full write-up is on LOLBAS's page for dsdbutil.exe.

dsdbutil.exe "activate instance ntds" "snapshot" "create" "quit" "quit"

dsdbutil.exe "activate instance ntds" "snapshot" "mount {GUID}" "quit" "quit"

dsdbutil.exe "activate instance ntds" "snapshot" "delete {GUID}" "quit" "quit"

dsdbutil.exe "activate instance ntds" "snapshot" "create" "list all" "mount 1" "quit" "quit"

dsdbutil.exe "activate instance ntds" "snapshot" "list all" "delete 1" "quit" "quit"

None of the 5 commands CmdID reads trips a Sigma process-creation rule. These commands and their descriptions are from LOLBAS’s entry for dsdbutil.exe, by Ekitji, at commit 2056cb766250 of 2026-09-26, under the GPL-3.0 and LOLBAS’s notice, with no warranty. Changed: Markdown is shown formatted. The source is in lolbas-gtfobins-commands.json.gz, and the full entry is on LOLBAS’s page for dsdbutil.exe. CmdID reads each with LOLBAS’s placeholders filled in: a URL as https://example.com/file, a share as \\192.0.2.10\share\file, a path as C:\Data\file and a command as calc.exe.

2 known copies

From the file’s version info and the copies recorded by xCyclopedia (MIT). A copy in another folder, signed by someone else or with another hash is not necessarily malicious, but it is worth a closer look. In Ceplin, "<sha256>".whatis() says which known copy a hash is.