System Binary Proxy Execution: Mavinject T1218.013

Tactic: Stealth

Adversaries may abuse mavinject.exe to proxy execution of malicious code. Mavinject.exe is the Microsoft Application Virtualization Injector, a Windows utility that can inject code into external processes as part of Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V).

Events covered

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

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 3 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 (5 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
CommandLine2contains 1, in 1 /injectrunning , *hmodule=0x*, *injectrunning*
Image1ends_with 1\mavinject32.exe, \mavinject64.exe
OriginalFileName1eq 1mavinject32.exe, mavinject64.exe
ParentImage1eq 1c:\windows\system32\appvclient.exe
process_name1eq 1mavinject.exe

Top indicator values (9 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
CommandLinecontains
/injectrunning
1
CommandLinein
*hmodule=0x*
1
CommandLinein
*injectrunning*
1
Imageends_with
\mavinject32.exe
1
Imageends_with
\mavinject64.exe
1
OriginalFileNameeq
mavinject32.exe
1
OriginalFileNameeq
mavinject64.exe
1
ParentImageeq
c:\windows\system32\appvclient.exe
1
process_nameeq
mavinject.exe
12

Exclusions (3 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
Imageends_with
\mavinject32.exe
1
Imageends_with
\mavinject64.exe
1
ParentImageeq
c:\windows\system32\appvclient.exe
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 2 rules

Splunk 1 rule