T1103
About this technique
Dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are specified in the AppInit_DLLs value in the Registry keys <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows</code> or <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows</code> are loaded by user32.dll into every process that loads user32.dll.
Read the full ATT&CK description
In practice this is nearly every program, since user32.dll is a very common library. (Citation: Elastic Process Injection July 2017) Similar to Process Injection, these values can be abused to obtain persistence and privilege escalation by causing a malicious DLL to be loaded and run in the context of separate processes on the computer. (Citation: AppInit Registry)
The AppInit DLL functionality is disabled in Windows 8 and later versions when secure boot is enabled. (Citation: AppInit Secure Boot)
Curated incident relationships
These associations come from maintained incident records. The recorded confidence is shown when the source record provides it.
Daily items linked through predicted CVEs
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Predicted CVE associations
These backfilled or model-produced candidates come from the current triage artifact. They are informational, not official MITRE mappings.