Suspicious Desktop Window Manager Spawning Shutdown Utility via Process Creation

ATT&CK techniques

Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
- T1068Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the Desktop Window Manager process dwm launching the shutdown utility which is an anomalous chain observed in an in the wild Windows local privilege escalation exploit that injected shellcode into dwm and invoked shutdown to trigger a DLL hijack against LogonUI. The genuine dwm process does not spawn shutdown so this relationship indicates exploitation.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious Desktop Window Manager Spawning Shutdown Utility via Process Creation

Pivot detection · T1068 · 9 related

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