Adversaries may establish persistence and/or elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by AppInit DLLs loaded into processes. Dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are specified in the AppInit_DLLs value in the Registry keys HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows are loaded by user32.dll into every process that loads user32.dll. In practice this is nearly every program, since user32.dll is a very common library.^[1]

Similar to Process Injection, these values can be abused to obtain elevated privileges by causing a malicious DLL to be loaded and run in the context of separate processes on the computer.^[2] Malicious AppInit DLLs may also provide persistence by continuously being triggered by API activity.

The AppInit DLL functionality is disabled in Windows 8 and later versions when secure boot is enabled.^[3]

References

1. Hosseini, A. (2017, July 18). Ten Process Injection Techniques: A Technical Survey Of Common And Trending Process Injection Techniques. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
2. Microsoft. (2006, October). Working with the AppInit_DLLs registry value. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
3. Microsoft. (n.d.). AppInit DLLs and Secure Boot. Retrieved July 15, 2015.

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