Suspicious VMware and Cortex Binaries Executing From User-Writable Paths

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects processes named after legitimate VMware guest tools or the Palo Alto Cortex updater running from AppData, Temp, or other user-writable directories. Actors in the Africa financial-sector campaign renamed their PoshC2 tooling to vmtoolsd.exe, vm3dservice.exe and CortexUpdater.exe to blend in. Trusted binary names executing from non-standard paths indicate masquerading.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious VMware and Cortex Binaries Executing From User-Writable Paths

Pivot detection · T1036.005 · 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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