Sysmon.exe
Sources: 300M+ executions observed in the wild.
Summary
Microsoft Sysinternals System Monitor (32-bit) - advanced system monitoring tool that logs process creation, network connections, and file changes to Windows Event Log.
Sysmon.exe is the 619th most commonly executed Windows program in EchoTrail's dataset, observed 7,245 times across enterprise environments. It typically runs from C:\Windows and it is most often launched by services.exe.
Get this in your tools
The same record for sysmon.exe, by REST or as an MCP tool. Free key, no card.
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $ECHOTRAIL_KEY" \
https://api.echotrail.io/v1/process/sysmon.exeFree returns the summary. Team returns the full record you see on this page. Endpoint docs
Behavior
Top Paths
- C:\Windows99.83%
- C:\Users\...0.17%
Top Hashes (SHA256)
- bc6a579553f1cafec84ffc1baea3ec6fa5656ed207d3e8177798070c4f71e53e91.46%
- ee067d135d799e98aa5de5cbd10d13a087721a982b7bff4d6c1678c33d0ed9fb4.55%
- 3c67460107b00d6ec9cc26ab8928c9c3a0eb16102ceff60f75487ce74a0639753.88%
- de2d6b0260566ef4a485ad3ffb4a57095419ac503c3a405cb62c5f698a5d69500.04%
- efb329554564d065d47d0f96d7688d3f1cd08d00e3d23293ca1412f19926ad670.04%
- 56499af33e42c43330fc0d051cb45e552a432e3132d5132d43c0da133ead33fd0.01%
- d6db47af473f0ae6985bd9a072f9bb439dad7dd425b0936d92bcc63b9d3e771c0.01%
Process Ancestry
Top Grandparents
- wininit.exe99.82%
- cmd.exe0.14%
- explorer.exe0.05%
Top Parents
- services.exe99.82%
- Sysmon.exe0.08%
- cmd.exe0.07%
- explorer.exe0.03%
Top Children
- WerFault.exe88.73%
- regsvr32.exe4.41%
- conhost.exe2.45%
- Sysmon.exe2.45%
- cacls.exe1.47%
- net1.exe0.49%
Security Analysis
What does Sysmon.exe normally do?
Same as sysmon64.exe but 32-bit version. Less common on modern 64-bit systems.
When is Sysmon.exe suspicious?
Same as sysmon64.exe. Service stopped or configuration tampered with.
How do attackers abuse Sysmon.exe?
Same as sysmon64.exe. Attackers target Sysmon for defense evasion.
Detection guidance
Same as sysmon64.exe.
False positive notes
Same as sysmon64.exe.
Related Processes
Ask Rocky about Sysmon.exe
Rocky is the free chat demo. It answers from this same dataset, no account needed.
This page is the Team-tier API record for Sysmon.exe. The free tier returns the summary, 500 lookups a month. Or ask Rocky.