The adversary takes advantage of a bug in an application failing to verify the integrity of the running process to execute arbitrary code in the address space of a separate live process. The adversary could use running code in the context of another process to try to access process's memory, system/network resources, etc. The goal of this attack is to evade detection defenses and escalate privileges by masking the malicious code under an existing legitimate process. Examples of approaches include but not limited to: dynamic-link library (DLL) injection, portable executable injection, thread execution hijacking, ptrace system calls, VDSO hijacking, function hooking, reflective code loading, and more.
Likelihood Of Attack
Low
Typical Severity
High
Relationships
This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.
Nature
Type
ID
Name
ChildOf
Standard Attack Pattern - A standard level attack pattern in CAPEC is focused on a specific methodology or technique used in an attack. It is often seen as a singular piece of a fully executed attack. A standard attack pattern is meant to provide sufficient details to understand the specific technique and how it attempts to accomplish a desired goal. A standard level attack pattern is a specific type of a more abstract meta level attack pattern.
Determine target process: The adversary determines a process with sufficient privileges that they wish to include code into.
Techniques
On Windows, use the process explorer's security tab to see if a process is running with administror privileges.
On Linux, use the ps command to view running processes and pipe the output to a search for a particular user, or the root user.
Experiment
Attempt to include simple code with known output: The adversary attempts to include very simple code into the existing process to determine if the code inclusion worked. The code will differ based on the approach used to include code into an existing process.
Exploit
Include arbitrary code into existing process: Once an adversary has determined that including code into the existing process is possible, they will include code for a targeted purpose, such as accessing that process's memory.
Prerequisites
The targeted application fails to verify the integrity of the running process that allows an adversary to execute arbitrary code.
Skills Required
[Level: High]
Knowledge of how to load malicious code into the memory space of a running process, as well as the ability to have the running process execute this code. For example, with DLL injection, the adversary must know how to load a DLL into the memory space of another running process, and cause this process to execute the code inside of the DLL.
Consequences
This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the attack pattern. The Scope identifies the security property that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in their attack. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a pattern will be used to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.
Scope
Impact
Likelihood
Integrity
Confidentiality
Execute Unauthorized Commands
Read Data
Mitigations
Prevent unknown or malicious software from loading through using an allowlist policy.
Properly restrict the location of the software being used.
Leverage security kernel modules providing advanced access control and process restrictions like SELinux.
Monitor API calls like CreateRemoteThread, SuspendThread/SetThreadContext/ResumeThread, QueueUserAPC, and similar for Windows.
Monitor API calls like ptrace system call, use of LD_PRELOAD environment variable, dlfcn dynamic linking API calls, and similar for Linux.
Monitor API calls like SetWindowsHookEx and SetWinEventHook which install hook procedures for Windows.
Monitor processes and command-line arguments for unknown behavior related to code injection.
Related Weaknesses
A Related Weakness relationship associates a weakness with this attack pattern. Each association implies a weakness that must exist for a given attack to be successful. If multiple weaknesses are associated with the attack pattern, then any of the weaknesses (but not necessarily all) may be present for the attack to be successful. Each related weakness is identified by a CWE identifier.
Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere
Taxonomy Mappings
CAPEC mappings to ATT&CK techniques leverage an inheritance model to streamline and minimize direct CAPEC/ATT&CK mappings. Inheritance of a mapping is indicated by text stating that the parent CAPEC has relevant ATT&CK mappings. Note that the ATT&CK Enterprise Framework does not use an inheritance model as part of the mapping to CAPEC.
Relevant to the ATT&CK taxonomy mapping (also see parent)
Description
This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern. These relationships are defined as ChildOf and ParentOf, and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as CanFollow, PeerOf, and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar attack patterns that the user may want to explore.
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