T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking Mappings

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 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.

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name
AC-6 Least Privilege Protects T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking
SC-18 Mobile Code Protects T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking
SC-7 Boundary Protection Protects T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking
SI-2 Flaw Remediation Protects T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking
SI-3 Malicious Code Protection Protects T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking
SI-4 System Monitoring Protects T1055.003 Thread Execution Hijacking
action.malware.variety.In-memory (malware never stored to persistent storage) related-to T1055.003 Process Injection: Thread Execution Hijacking