Suspicious COM Hijack of ClickOnce Deployment Service CLSID (via registry_set)

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
registry_set
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-13
Updated
2026-09-13

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Defense Evasion

  6. Cred Access

  7. Discovery

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects hijacking of the ClickOnce deployment service COM object by registering a LocalServer32 or InprocServer32 handler under its CLSID in the current user hive. Attackers point this CLSID at an attacker-controlled executable or DLL so that dfsvc activation launches their code. Per-user registration of this specific CLSID is a strong COM-hijack indicator.

Related detections9 linkedT1546.015 — drag to rearrange
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Suspicious COM Handler Hijack of MsCtfMonitor CLSID via CharmingCypress
Malicious COM Hijack of PSFactoryBuffer InprocServer32
Malicious APT-C-60 COM Hijack via SpyGlace CLSID InProcServer32 (via registry_set)
Malicious COM Hijack via CLSID InProcServer32 Registry Modification (via registry_set)
Malicious COM Object Hijack Pointing to a User-Writable DLL (via registry_set)
Malicious COM Object Hijack Pointing to IconCache DLL
Suspicious COM Hijack of ClickOnce Deployment Service CLSID (via registry_set)
Pivot detection · T1546.015 · 9 related

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