Suspicious dllhost.exe Spawned with CLSID and Anomalous Parent (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-08-27
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Cred Access

  6. Discovery

  7. Lateral Movement

  8. Collection

  9. C2

  10. Exfiltration

  11. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects dllhost.exe running with a GUID/CLSID on its command line while not being parented by svchost.exe. Medusa ransomware leverages a COM elevation moniker so that dllhost hosts a malicious auto-approved COM object, and the abnormal parent process reveals the UAC bypass rather than legitimate COM surrogate activity.

Related detections9 linkedT1546.015 — drag to rearrange
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Malicious COM TypeLib Hijack via Persistence CLSID Registration
Malicious COM Hijacking via Twinapi CLSID InprocServer32 Registration
Malicious Cloud Atlas UAC Bypass via fodhelper (via process_creation)
Suspicious Child Process Spawned by Control Panel DCOM Surrogate
Suspicious computerdefaults.exe Spawning Child Process
Suspicious MDaemon WorldClient CgiBase6 Extension Registration by Careto
Suspicious dllhost.exe Spawned with CLSID and Anomalous Parent (via process_creation)
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.