MSASCuiL.exe
Summary
Windows Defender notification icon - displays the Windows Security shield icon in the system tray and shows protection notifications.
MSASCuiL.exe is the 477th most commonly executed Windows program in EchoTrail's dataset, observed 12,806 times across enterprise environments. It typically runs from C:\Program Files\Windows Defender and it is most often launched by explorer.exe.
Behavior
Top Paths
- C:\Program Files\Windows Defender100%
Top Hashes (SHA256)
- 16911a95dd4892db285189b6171a5ea979898550ea6da2dbdfd9a512d7d881d055.42%
- 55a81acee419a8e6a246239d277a4f11c232ec168039400bb2f783e3d4fd27a626.43%
- e522c2eb473d193d3525a393d52347b411a5540f5e8f5586fb419d0d0230be3917.59%
- 0b586ea706cf714534d8bb8188f33d6e0ac1a10b065e3d181b2cba4434b531230.33%
- 7290c4864aaa9533f9802ac3fc2811fee4d29c0d391fa9bab545f3db7add36c70.18%
- 557aea5903761c20c75f46fb245aa0a2dd40cee7cdcc39da3292d809b8e5b56b0.04%
- 1d26d3c26697c0e4832b82b66b612eb7c41a692e2dc2f651100edcec9a1511c30.01%
- ed6905f493a3276460bad9f2edb3cf91515e2fc416a74627207b541f32c9959d0.01%
Process Ancestry
Top Grandparents
- userinit.exe99.84%
- winlogon.exe0.03%
- WerFault.exe0.02%
- HxTsr.exe0.01%
- OfficeC2RClient.exe0.01%
- SenseCncProxy.exe0.01%
- update_task.exe0.01%
- wermgr.exe0.01%
Top Parents
- explorer.exe99.98%
- MSASCui.exe0.02%
Top Children
- MSASCui.exe100%
Rare or environment-specific process names are omitted from ancestry tables. Percentages are of all observed relationships.
Security Analysis
What does MSASCuiL.exe normally do?
System tray icon for Windows Security. Launched at user logon.
False positive notes
Normal Windows component.
Related Processes
Ask Rocky about MSASCuiL.exe
Rocky answers questions about MSASCuiL.exe grounded in this same dataset — free, no account needed.
Need this data programmatically? The Rocky API includes 500 free lookups a month. Or just ask Rocky.
Data from EchoTrail's dataset of ~346M Windows process executions. Last extracted 2026-08-04.