Agent skill

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks

by mukul975 in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills

Hunts for adversary persistence and execution via Windows scheduled tasks (T1053.005) by analyzing Security Event ID 4698 task-creation events, suspicious task properties, and unusual execution…

Apache-2.0Auto-check passedProductivity & Automation

Install Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks

skills CLI
$ npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks .claude/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks
GitHub stars
34k
Token cost
~1.2k tokens
SKILL.md length
372 words
Files
8 (incl. scripts, references, assets)
Skills in repo
644
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Apache-2.0

At a glance

Hunts for adversary persistence and execution via Windows scheduled tasks (T1053.005) by analyzing Security Event ID 4698 task-creation events, suspicious task properties, and unusual execution…

  • Works in 7 steps: Enumerate All Scheduled Tasks: Collect… → Monitor Task Creation Events: Track… → Analyze Task Actions: Examine what each… → …
  • Tasks that involve Scheduled and recurring tasks
  • SKILL.md covers When to Use, Prerequisites, Workflow and Detection Queries, plus 2 more sections
  • Runs Python scripts from its folder

What it does

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks is an agent skill from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills. Hunts for adversary persistence and execution via Windows scheduled tasks (T1053.005) by analyzing Security Event ID 4698 task-creation events, suspicious task properties, and unusual execution patterns from schtasks.exe/at.exe. Use after detecting schtasks or at.exe in process creation logs, during incident response to enumerate persistence on compromised hosts, or when Event ID 4698 fires for an unusual task.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.2k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 10 other files, including scripts, reference files and assets (for example `assets/template.md`, `references/api-reference.md` and `references/standards.md`).

It sits in Productivity & Automation, covering Scheduled and recurring tasks. It works with PowerShell. The repository describes itself as: 817 structured cybersecurity skills for AI agents · Mapped to 6 frameworks: MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF 2.0, MITRE ATLAS, D3FEND, NIST AI RMF & MITRE F3 (Fight Fraud) · agentskills.io…. The licence is Apache-2.0.

When your agent uses it

  • Tasks that involve Scheduled and recurring tasks

Example prompts

  • “Use the hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks skill to hunt for adversary persistence and execution via Windows scheduled tasks (T1053.005) by…”
  • “/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks”

Requirements

  • Python 3

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Enumerate All Scheduled Tasks: Collect complete task inventory from target systems using schtasks /query /fo CSV /v or Get-ScheduledTask…
  2. Monitor Task Creation Events: Track Event ID 4698 for new task creation, correlating with the creating process and user account context.
  3. Analyze Task Actions: Examine what each task executes. Flag tasks running scripts (PowerShell, cmd, wscript), binaries from user-writable…
  4. Check Task Triggers: Review trigger conditions. Tasks triggered by system startup, user logon, or short intervals (1-5 minutes) warrant…
  5. Identify Hidden or Disguised Tasks: Hunt for tasks with names mimicking legitimate Windows tasks, tasks with Security Descriptor…
  6. Correlate with Process Execution: Match scheduled task execution events with process creation logs to confirm what actually runs.
  7. Baseline and Diff: Compare current task inventory against known-good baselines to identify new, modified, or unexpected tasks.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 54a7988. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Ships 2 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.4k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 113 tokens; SKILL.md has 372 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~113
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.2k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~2.4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills at commit 54a7988, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© mukul975). 372 words, ~1,220 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 7 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks
description
Hunts for adversary persistence and execution via Windows scheduled tasks (T1053.005) by analyzing Security Event ID 4698 task-creation events, suspicious task properties, and unusual execution patterns from schtasks.exe/at.exe. Use after detecting schtasks or at.exe in process creation logs, during incident response to enumerate persistence on compromised hosts, or when Event ID 4698 fires for an unusual task.
domain
cybersecurity
subdomain
threat-hunting
tags
threat-hunting, scheduled-tasks, persistence, mitre-t1053-005, windows, endpoint-detection
version
1.0
author
mahipal
license
Apache-2.0
nist_csf
DE.CM-01, DE.AE-02, DE.AE-07, ID.RA-05
mitre_attack
T1046, T1057, T1082, T1083, T1547

Hunting for Suspicious Scheduled Tasks

When to Use

  • When proactively hunting for persistence mechanisms in Windows environments
  • After detecting schtasks.exe or at.exe usage in process creation logs
  • When investigating malware that survives reboots and user logoffs
  • During incident response to enumerate all persistence on compromised systems
  • When Windows Security Event ID 4698 (Scheduled Task Created) fires for unusual tasks

Prerequisites

  • Windows Security Event ID 4698/4699/4702 (Task Created/Deleted/Updated)
  • Sysmon Event ID 1 for schtasks.exe process creation with command lines
  • Windows Task Scheduler operational log (Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational)
  • PowerShell logging for Register-ScheduledTask cmdlet usage
  • Access to Task Scheduler XML definitions on endpoints

Workflow

  1. Enumerate All Scheduled Tasks: Collect complete task inventory from target systems using schtasks /query /fo CSV /v or Get-ScheduledTask PowerShell cmdlet.
  2. Monitor Task Creation Events: Track Event ID 4698 for new task creation, correlating with the creating process and user account context.
  3. Analyze Task Actions: Examine what each task executes. Flag tasks running scripts (PowerShell, cmd, wscript), binaries from user-writable paths (TEMP, AppData, Downloads), or encoded/obfuscated commands.
  4. Check Task Triggers: Review trigger conditions. Tasks triggered by system startup, user logon, or short intervals (1-5 minutes) warrant investigation.
  5. Identify Hidden or Disguised Tasks: Hunt for tasks with names mimicking legitimate Windows tasks, tasks with Security Descriptor modifications hiding them from standard enumeration, or tasks stored in non-standard registry locations.
  6. Correlate with Process Execution: Match scheduled task execution events with process creation logs to confirm what actually runs.
  7. Baseline and Diff: Compare current task inventory against known-good baselines to identify new, modified, or unexpected tasks.
Show full SKILL.md (113 more words)Show less

Detection Queries

Splunk -- Scheduled Task Creation
spl
index=wineventlog EventCode=4698
| spath output=TaskName path=EventData.TaskName
| spath output=TaskContent path=EventData.TaskContent
| where NOT match(TaskName, "(?i)(\\\\Microsoft\\\\|\\\\Windows\\\\)")
| table _time Computer SubjectUserName TaskName TaskContent
Splunk -- Schtasks.exe Suspicious Usage
spl
index=sysmon EventCode=1 Image="*\\schtasks.exe"
| where match(CommandLine, "(?i)/create")
| where match(CommandLine, "(?i)(powershell|cmd|wscript|cscript|mshta|rundll32|regsvr32|http|https|\\\\temp\\\\|\\\\appdata\\\\)")
| table _time Computer User CommandLine ParentImage
KQL -- Microsoft Sentinel
kql
SecurityEvent
| where EventID == 4698
| extend TaskName = tostring(EventData.TaskName)
| extend TaskContent = tostring(EventData.TaskContent)
| where TaskContent has_any ("powershell", "cmd.exe", "wscript", "http://", "https://", "\\Temp\\", "\\AppData\\")
| project TimeGenerated, Computer, Account, TaskName, TaskContent

Common Scenarios

  1. Cobalt Strike Persistence: Creates scheduled tasks via schtasks.exe to execute PowerShell download cradles at user logon intervals.
  2. Ransomware Staging: Task created to run encryption payload at a future time, often during off-hours for maximum impact.
  3. Hidden Task via SD Modification: Attacker modifies Security Descriptor of scheduled task to hide it from normal enumeration while maintaining execution.
  4. COM Handler Abuse: Task uses COM handler rather than direct executable path, making action inspection more complex.
  5. Lateral Movement via Tasks: Remote scheduled task creation using schtasks /create /s REMOTE_HOST for execution on other systems.

Output Format

Hunt ID: TH-SCHTASK-[DATE]-[SEQ]
Host: [Hostname]
Task Name: [Full task path]
Action: [Command/Script executed]
Trigger: [Startup/Logon/Timer/Event]
Created By: [User account]
Created From: [Local/Remote]
Creation Time: [Timestamp]
Run As: [Execution account]
Risk Level: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]

© mukul975, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 7 other files (scripts, references, assets) in skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks of mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • LICENSE
  • assets/template.md
  • references/api-reference.md
  • references/standards.md
  • references/workflows.md
  • scripts/agent.py
  • scripts/process.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 54a7988

Compare with similar skills

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks this skillmukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills34k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Powershell Protaracodlabs/aiden852—~747Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Cron Opsczl9707/build-your-own-openclaw1.9k—~593Automated safety check: PassMIT
Wp Wpcli And OpsAutomattic/agent-skills2112 repos~988Automated safety check: PassNone
Superset Automatesuperset-sh/superset15k—~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Action Items Todoistmgonto/executive-assistant-skills118—~3.8kAutomated safety check: NotesNone

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Works with

Questions about Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks

What does Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks do?

Hunts for adversary persistence and execution via Windows scheduled tasks (T1053.005) by analyzing Security Event ID 4698 task-creation events, suspicious task properties, and unusual execution…. Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks is an agent skill from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.exe.

When should I use Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks?

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks fits situations like: tasks that involve Scheduled and recurring tasks.

How do I install Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills) into .claude/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks in Codex?

Run `npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills) into .agents/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks, .gemini/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks, .github/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks and .opencode/skills/hunting-for-suspicious-scheduled-tasks in your project.

What does Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks needs Python for the scripts in its folder. Our summary lists: Python 3.

Does Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. The check reads SKILL.md only: the scripts in the folder are not scanned, so read them before running anything.

What licence does Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks use?

Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks use?

About 1.2k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 4.9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 1.2k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks: Powershell Pro (taracodlabs/aiden, 852 stars), Cron Ops (czl9707/build-your-own-openclaw, 1.9k stars), Wp Wpcli And Ops (Automattic/agent-skills, 211 stars) and Superset Automate (superset-sh/superset, 15k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Hunting For Suspicious Scheduled Tasks?

mukul975 (a GitHub user) maintains it in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills, which has 34,116 GitHub stars. The repository holds 644 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 31, 2026.

Source: mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.