Description
Adversaries may abuse Microsoft Office add-ins to obtain persistence on a compromised system. Office add-ins can be used to add functionality to Office programs. (Citation: Microsoft Office Add-ins) There are different types of add-ins that can be used by the various Office products; including Word/Excel add-in Libraries (WLL/XLL), VBA add-ins, Office Component Object Model (COM) add-ins, automation add-ins, VBA Editor (VBE), Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) add-ins, and Outlook add-ins. (Citation: MRWLabs Office Persistence Add-ins)(Citation: FireEye Mail CDS 2018) Add-ins can be used to obtain persistence because they can be set to execute code when an Office application starts.
Threat-Mapped Scoring
Threat Score:
0.0
Industry:
Threat Priority:
Unclassified
ATT&CK Kill Chain Metadata
- Tactics: persistence
- Platforms: Windows, Office Suite
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Detection Guidance:
Monitor and validate the Office trusted locations on the file system and audit the Registry entries relevant for enabling add-ins.(Citation: GlobalDotName Jun 2019)(Citation: MRWLabs Office Persistence Add-ins) Collect process execution information including process IDs (PID) and parent process IDs (PPID) and look for abnormal chains of activity resulting from Office processes. Non-standard process execution trees may also indicate suspicious or malicious behavior