Suspicious UAT-8302 DLL Side-Loading via Signed Application Launcher

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-07-25
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the UAT-8302 side-load launchers Yandex.exe or VMtools.exe invoked with the campaign-specific -r and -p:ini arguments that trigger loading of a malicious DLL and its encrypted configuration. Abusing a benign signed application to load attacker code lets the CloudSorcerer implant execute under a trusted process. The paired argument pattern narrows this to malicious side-loading rather than normal use.

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Suspicious UAT-8302 DLL Side-Loading via Signed Application Launcher
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.