Malicious DLL Sideloading via SmadavProtect and SolidPDFCreator by Stately Taurus

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1574.001DLL
Persistence
- T1574.001DLL
Priv Esc
- T1574.001DLL
Defense Evasion
- T1574.001DLL
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects legitimate signed executables SmadavProtect32.exe and SolidPDFCreator.exe loading the malicious sideloaded DLLs Smadhook32c.dll and SolidPDFCreator.dll used by Stately Taurus to run the errordetails payload described by Unit 42. DLL search-order hijacking of trusted binaries lets the actor execute espionage code under a benign process which evades signature-based defenses.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1574.001 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious RoboForm Signed Binary Executed From Non-Standard Path (via process_creation)

Malicious dal_keepalives.dll Sideloaded By Signed Binary (via image_load)

Suspicious Cortex XDR Binary Sideloading winutils.dll (via image_load)

Suspicious CoinLoader DLL Sideload From Z-1-36-81 Directory (via image_load)

Suspicious shfolder.dll Sideloading via VMware net-service Binary

Suspicious AtlasRAT Loader Artifacts in Public Documents (via file_event)

Suspicious Commonly-Hijacked DLL Loaded From a User-Writable Path (via image_load)

Suspicious Impact of 'SMOKEDHAM Backdoor' with MSDTC Service Privilege Escalation via Command Line (via process_creation)

Malicious DLL ServerLevelPluginDll Command Installation (via process_creation)

Malicious DLL Sideloading via SmadavProtect and SolidPDFCreator by Stately Taurus

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.

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →