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T1546.009: AppCert DLLs

View on MITRE ATT&CK The MITRE Corporation · Published 24/01/2020 15:47 · Modified 27/03/2026 01:10

Essential information

MITRE technique ID
T1546.009
Confidence
100/100
Revoked
No
Published
24/01/2020 15:47
Modified
27/03/2026 01:10
Author / Source
The MITRE Corporation

Platforms

windows

Description

Adversaries may establish persistence and/or elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by AppCert DLLs loaded into processes. Dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are specified in the `AppCertDLLs` Registry key under `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\` are loaded into every process that calls the ubiquitously used application programming interface (API) functions `CreateProcess`, `CreateProcessAsUser`, `CreateProcessWithLoginW`, `CreateProcessWithTokenW`, or `WinExec`. (Citation: Elastic Process Injection July 2017) Similar to [Process Injection](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1055), this value can be abused to obtain elevated privileges by causing a malicious DLL to be loaded and run in the context of separate processes on the computer. Malicious AppCert DLLs may also provide persistence by continuously being triggered by API activity.

Kill chain phases

Kill chainPhase
mitre-attack persistence
mitre-attack privilege-escalation

Marking (TLP)

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External references