Malicious Phantom DLL Hijacking of wlbsctrl or TSMSISrv Loaded by svchost

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 svchost.exe loading wlbsctrl.dll or TSMSISrv.dll, which are non-present phantom DLLs abused for hijacking. In the PassiveNeuron campaign attackers placed malicious copies of these DLLs so that svchost would load their implant during service startup. Because these libraries are not shipped by default Windows in the search path svchost uses, their presence indicates phantom DLL hijacking for stealthy persistence and privilege escalation.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious Phantom DLL Hijacking of wlbsctrl or TSMSISrv Loaded by svchost

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.

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