Adversaries may execute their own malicious payloads by hijacking how the .NET AppDomainManager loads assemblies. The .NET framework uses the AppDomainManager class to create and manage one or more isolated runtime environments (called application domains) inside a process to host the execution of .NET applications. Assemblies (.exe or .dll binaries compiled to run as .NET code) may be loaded into an application domain as executable code.^[1]

Known as "AppDomainManager injection," adversaries may execute arbitrary code by hijacking how .NET applications load assemblies. For example, malware may create a custom application domain inside a target process to load and execute an arbitrary assembly. Alternatively, configuration files (.config) or process environment variables that define .NET runtime settings may be tampered with to instruct otherwise benign .NET applications to load a malicious assembly (identified by name) into the target process.^[2],[3],[4]

References

1. Microsoft. (2021, September 15). Application domains. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
2. Administrator. (2020, May 26). APPDOMAINMANAGER INJECTION AND DETECTION. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
3. PwC Threat Intelligence. (2023, October 25). Yellow Liderc ships its scripts and delivers IMAPLoader malware. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
4. Spagnola, N. (2023, May 5). AppDomain Manager Injection: New Techniques For Red Teams. Retrieved March 29, 2024.

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