process injection | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A new collection of eight process injection techniques, collectively dubbed  PoolParty , could be exploited to achieve code execution in Windows systems while evading endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems. SafeBreach researcher Alon Leviev  said  the methods are "capable of working across all processes without any limitations, making them more flexible than existing process injection techniques." The  findings  were first presented at the  Black Hat Europe 2023  conference last week. Process injection refers to an  evasion technique  used to run arbitrary code in a target process. A wide range of process injection techniques exists, such as dynamic link library (DLL) injection, portable executable injection, thread execution hijacking, process hollowing, and process doppelgänging. PoolParty is so named because it's rooted in a component called Windows user-mode thread pool, leveraging it to insert any type of work item into a ta...

A new process injection technique dubbed Mockingjay could be exploited by threat actors to bypass security solutions to execute malicious code on compromised systems. "The injection is executed without space allocation, setting permissions or even starting a thread," Security Joes researchers Thiago Peixoto, Felipe Duarte, and Ido Naor  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The uniqueness of this technique is that it requires a vulnerable DLL and copying code to the right section." Process injection is an  attack method  that allows adversaries to inject code into processes in order to evade process-based defenses and elevate privileges. In doing so, it could allow for the execution of arbitrary code in the memory space of a separate live process. Some of the well-known process injection techniques include dynamic link library (DLL) injection, portable executable injection, thread execution hijacking, process hollowing, and process doppelgänging, amon...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

The fileless code injection technique called Process Doppelgänging is actively being used by not just one or two but a large number of malware families in the wild, a new report shared with The Hacker News revealed. Discovered in late 2017, Process Doppelgänging is a fileless variation of Process Injection technique that takes advantage of a built-in Windows function to evade detection and works on all modern versions of Microsoft Windows operating system. Process Doppelgänging attack works by utilizing a Windows feature called Transactional NTFS (TxF) to launch a malicious process by replacing the memory of a legitimate process, tricking process monitoring tools and antivirus into believing that the legitimate process is running. Few months after the disclosure of this technique, a variant of the SynAck ransomware became the first-ever malware exploiting the Process Doppelgänging technique, targeting users in the United States, Kuwait, Germany, and Iran. Shortly after th...