Query: detection engineering for Thread Execution Hijacking
Matching passage: T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking. Tactics: stealth, privilege escalation. Description: Adversaries may inject malicious code into hijacked processes in order to evade process-based defenses as well as possibly elevate privileges. Thread Execution Hijacking is a method of executing arbitrary code in the address space of a separate live process. Thread Execution Hijacking is commonly performed by suspending an existing process then unmapping/hollowing its memory, which can then be replaced with malicious code or the path to a DLL. A handle to an existing victim process is first created with native Windows API calls such as <code>OpenThread</code>. At this point the process can be suspended then written to, realigned to the injected code, and resumed via <code>SuspendThread </code>, <code>VirtualAllocEx</code>, <code>WriteProcessMemory</code>, <code>SetThreadContext</code>, then <code>ResumeThread</code> respectively.(Citation: Elastic Process Injection July 2017) This is very similar to [Process Hollowing](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1055/012) but targets an existing process rather than creating a process in a suspended state. Running code in the context of another process may allow access to the process's memory, system/network resources, and possibly elevated privileges. Execution via Thread Execution Hijacking may also evade detection from security products since the execution is masked under a legitimate process.
Near-miss passage: T1055.009 Proc Memory. Tactics: stealth, privilege escalation. Description: Adversaries may inject malicious code into processes via the /proc filesystem in order to evade process-based defenses as well as possibly elevate privileges. Proc memory injection is a method of executing arbitrary code in the address space of a separate live process. Proc memory injection involves enumerating the memory of a process via the /proc filesystem (<code>/proc/[pid]</code>) then crafting a return-oriented programming (ROP) payload with available gadgets/instructions. Each running process has its own directory, which includes memory mappings. Proc memory injection is commonly performed by overwriting the target processes’ stack using memory mappings provided by the /proc filesystem. This information can be used to enumerate offsets (including the stack) and gadgets (or instructions within the program that can be used to build a malicious payload) otherwise hidden by process memory protections such as address space layout randomization (ASLR). Once enumerated, the target processes’ memory map within <code>/proc/[pid]/maps</code> can be overwritten using dd.(Citation: Uninformed Needle)(Citation: GDS Linux Injection)(Citation: DD Man) Other techniques such as [Dynamic Linker Hijacking](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1574/006) may be used to populate a target process with more available gadgets. Similar to [Process Hollowing](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1055/012), proc memory injection may target child processes (such as a backgrounded copy of sleep).(Citation: GDS Linux Injection) Running code in the context of another process may allow access to the process's memory, system/network resources, and possibly elevated privileges. Execution via proc memory injection may also evade detection from security products since the execution is masked under a legitimate process.