Malicious DLL Sideloaded by Microsoft Office Application

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
image_load
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-15
Updated
2026-10-15

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a Microsoft Office application loading one of the specific DLLs abused for the MS15-132 DLL hijack such as elsext dll oci dll and the winrt forwarder library as described in NCC Group Office DLL hijacking research. Adversaries deliver a document with an OLE object via the browser that drops a malicious DLL next to the document so Office resolves and executes attacker code for initial access.

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Malicious DLL Sideloaded by Microsoft Office Application
Pivot detection · T1574.001 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.