Process Injection: Dynamic-link Library Injection T1055.001

Tactics: Stealth, Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may inject dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) into processes in order to evade process-based defenses as well as possibly elevate privileges. DLL injection is a method of executing arbitrary code in the address space of a separate live process.

Events covered

5 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 21 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (18 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
CommandLine9contains 5, regex_match 3, ends_with 1, match 1(?i)(davclnt.dll.*DavSetCookie.*://\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1..., -d , -p , /c , /d
EventID8eq 81, 4104, 4688, 7, 8
Type6eq 6
Image5ends_with 5\dctask64.exe, \\wermgr.exe, \mavinject32.exe, \mavinject64.exe, \tracker.exe
ScriptBlockText3in 3, contains 1, match 1(?i)[c][r][e][a][t][e][p][r][o][c][e][s][s], (?i)[c][r][e][a][t][e][r][e][m][o][t][e][t][h][r][e][a][d], (?i)[c][r][e][a][t][e][t][h][r][e][a][d], [reflection.assembly]::load, [system.reflection.assembly]::load
Hashes2contains 2imphash=1bb6f93b129f398c7c4a76bb97450bba, imphash=6834b1b94e49701d77ccb3c0895e1afd, imphash=f1039ced4b91572ab7847d26032e6bbf
OriginalFileName2eq 2dynwrapx.dll, mavinject32.exe, mavinject64.exe
ParentImage2ends_with 1, eq 1\msbuild\current\bin\amd64\msbuild.exe, \msbuild\current\bin\msbuild.exe, c:\windows\system32\appvclient.exe
event.category2eq 2process
event_type2in 2childproc, netconn, proc
Description1eq 1Tracker
ImageLoaded1ends_with 1\\dynwrapx.dll
Product1eq 1DynamicWrapperX
StartAddress1ends_with 10B80, 0C7C, 0C88
StartFunction1eq 1LoadLibraryA

Top indicator values (106 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
CommandLineregex_match
(?i)(davclnt.dll.*DavSetCookie.*://\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3})
33
EventIDeq
1
2237
EventIDeq
4104
2268
EventIDeq
4688
2313
Hashescontains
imphash=1bb6f93b129f398c7c4a76bb97450bba
22
Hashescontains
imphash=6834b1b94e49701d77ccb3c0895e1afd
22
Hashescontains
imphash=f1039ced4b91572ab7847d26032e6bbf
22
Hashescontains
imphash=faa2ac19875fade461c8d89dcf2710a3
22
Imageends_with
\dctask64.exe
2
event.categoryeq
process
2128
event_typein
childproc
227
event_typein
netconn
227
event_typein
proc
227
CommandLinecontains
-d
18
CommandLinecontains
-p
110
CommandLinecontains
/c
16
CommandLinecontains
/d
13
CommandLinecontains
/errorreport:prompt
1
CommandLinecontains
/injectrunning
1
CommandLinecontains
executecmd64
1
CommandLinecontains
injectdll
1
CommandLinecontains
invokeexe
1
CommandLinecontains
dll mystart
1
CommandLinecontains
dll,mystart
1
CommandLinecontains
rundll32.exe
18
CommandLineends_with
MyStart
1
CommandLinematch
(?i)CreateRemoteThread|Createthread
1
CommandLinematch
(?i)VirtualAlloc(Ex)?
1
CommandLinematch
(?i)WriteProcessMemory|virtualfree
1
Descriptioneq
Tracker
1

Exclusions (9 distinct)

Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
CommandLinecontains
/errorreport:prompt
1
Imageends_with
\dctask64.exe
1
Imageends_with
\mavinject32.exe
1
Imageends_with
\mavinject64.exe
1
ParentImageends_with
\msbuild\current\bin\amd64\msbuild.exe
1
ParentImageends_with
\msbuild\current\bin\msbuild.exe
1
ParentImageeq
c:\windows\system32\appvclient.exe
1
file.directoryin
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection\Downloads
1
file.directoryin
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection\SenseCM
1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 8 rules

Elastic 2 rules

Splunk 11 rules