Suspicious AppLaunch.exe Execution as Process Hollowing Target

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1055.012Process Hollowing
Defense Evasion
- T1055.012Process Hollowing
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the .NET ClickOnce host AppLaunch.exe running with a parent other than a legitimate development tool. Titan Stealer hollows AppLaunch.exe and injects its XOR-decoded Golang stealer into the trusted signed binary to evade detection. AppLaunch.exe spawned outside of Visual Studio or build tooling is a common injection and masquerading target.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1055.012 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious AppLaunch.exe Spawned As Injection Target (via process_creation)

Suspicious JScript.NET Compiler Spawned by AutoIt for Process Hollowing

PureHVNC Process Hollowing into RegAsm Spawned by PowerShell (via process_creation)

Suspicious DotNet Utility Spawned by Script Host for Hollowing (via process_creation)

Suspicious RegSvcs Reflective .NET Load from Fake Update Chain

In-Memory XWorm Injection Target RegAsm Spawned from User AppData (via process_creation)

Possible Process Injection Target RegAsm Launched Without Arguments via Process Creation

In-Memory Regasm Process Hollowing Spawned by PowerShell (via process_creation)

Suspicious ctfmon.exe Execution With Command-Line Arguments via PikaBot Injection

Suspicious AppLaunch.exe Execution as Process Hollowing Target

Pivot detection · T1055.012 · 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 →