Suspicious Service DLL Hijack of IKEEXT or PrintNotify

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1574.001DLL
Persistence
- T1543.003Windows Service
- T1574.001DLL
Priv Esc
- T1543.003Windows Service
- T1574.001DLL
Defense Evasion
- T1574.001DLL
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects modification of the ServiceDll value for the IKEEXT or PrintNotify services, a DLL search-order and service hijack technique used by Winnti in Operation CuckooBees for persistence. Attackers point these built-in services at a malicious DLL so their code runs under a trusted service context. Tampering with the ServiceDll of these services is a strong persistence-and-evasion indicator.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious Service DLL Hijack of IKEEXT or PrintNotify

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.

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