Suspicious Service DLL Persistence Under Masquerading Service Names

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
registry_set
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-08-13
Updated
2026-08-28

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 a ServiceDll value being set under the COMSysConfig or StorSyncSvc service keys which the ColunmTK APT41 cluster registers to load a malicious DLL through a svchost hosted service. The names impersonate legitimate Windows components to blend in. It is important because ServiceDll hijacking grants stealthy SYSTEM level persistence.

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Suspicious Service DLL Persistence Under Masquerading Service Names
Pivot detection · T1543.003 · 9 related

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