Suspicious DLL Sideloading via EngineX Executable

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 the DeerStealer loader executable side-loading its malicious companion DLL, a DLL search-order hijacking technique that runs attacker code under a benign-looking process. Loading cmdres.dll from the EngineX host binary is characteristic of the DeerStealer execution chain and indicates active compromise.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1574.001 — drag to rearrange

Malicious MpGear.dll Side-Loading by Signed Host Binary

Malicious msedge_elf.dll Side-Loading from Public Libraries

Suspicious DLL Sideloading by hpreader Executable from Documents

Malicious Libcurl DLL Side-Loading by Paint Backdoor (via image_load)

Suspicious GHOSTPULSE DLL Side-Loading via Signed Binary

Suspicious DLL Side-Loading by Microsoft.Http.Api.exe via HTTPService.dll

Malicious ChargeWeapon DLL Side-Loading via mcods.exe (via image_load)

Malicious HyperBro DLL Side-Loading via vfhost.exe (via image_load)

Suspicious Service DLL Hijack of IKEEXT or PrintNotify

Suspicious DLL Sideloading via EngineX Executable

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 →