Reflective Code Loading T1620
Tactic: Stealth
Adversaries may reflectively load code into a process in order to conceal the execution of malicious payloads. Reflective loading involves allocating then executing payloads directly within the memory of the process, vice creating a thread or process backed by a file path on disk (e.g., Shared Modules).
Events covered
4 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 1 | Process creation |
| Sysmon | Event ID 7 | Image loaded |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4104 | Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal). |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 12 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 (19 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.
Top indicator values (88 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.
Exclusions (23 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.
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.
Sigma 2 rules
- Potential In-Memory Execution Using Reflection.Assembly
- PowerShell Base64 Encoded Reflective Assembly Load
Elastic 8 rules
- Memory Threat - Detected - Elastic Defend
- Memory Threat - Prevented- Elastic Defend
- Network Connection from Binary with RWX Memory Region
- Process Started with Executable Stack
- Suspicious .NET Reflection via PowerShell
- Suspicious Managed Code Hosting Process
- Suspicious Process Execution Detected via Defend for Containers
- Unknown Execution of Binary with RWX Memory Region