kevmap

Techniques › T1564 › T1564.007

T1564.007 VBA Stomping

stealth — Linux, macOS, Windows · attack.mitre.org · JSON

1
MITRE detection strategy
3
analytics
0
Sigma rules tagged attack.t1564.007
0
KEV CVEs mapped here
<p>Adversaries may hide malicious Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) payloads embedded within MS Office documents by replacing the VBA source code with benign data.</p><p>MS Office documents with embedded VBA content store source code inside of module streams. Each module stream has a <code>PerformanceCache</code> that stores a separate compiled version of the VBA source code known as p-code. The p-code is executed when the MS Office version specified in the <code>_VBA_PROJECT</code> stream (which contains the version-dependent description of the VBA project) matches the version of the host MS Office application.</p><p>An adversary may hide malicious VBA code by overwriting the VBA source code location with zero’s, benign code, or random bytes while leaving the previously compiled malicious p-code. Tools that scan for malicious VBA source code may be bypassed as the unwanted code is hidden in the compiled p-code. If the VBA source code is removed, some tools might even think that there are no macros present. If there is a version match between the <code>_VBA_PROJECT</code> stream and host MS Office application, the p-code will be executed, otherwise the benign VBA source code will be decompressed and recompiled to p-code, thus removing malicious p-code and potentially bypassing dynamic analysis.</p>

KEV CVEs mapped to this technique · CTID Mappings Explorer

None. No KEV entry in the public mapping names this technique. Given that 74.7% of KEV has no mapping at all, this says more about the mapping than about the technique.

Detection strategy · ATT&CK Enterprise v19.2

Sigma rules · SigmaHQ da9bb07d64, tag attack.t1564.007

No Sigma rule carries this tag. MITRE publishes a detection strategy above, so the behaviour is specified; what is missing is public detection content.

Rules tagged at the parent level (attack.t1564) 10

These target the parent technique, not this sub-technique specifically. Listed for completeness, not counted as coverage.

Sysmon Configuration Modification hightest
Author: frack113 · 2021-06-04 (modified 2022-08-02) · logsource: product=windows category=sysmon_status · 1f2b5353-573f-4880-8e33-7d04dcf97744
Detects when an attacker tries to hide from Sysmon by disabling or stopping it
Techniques: T1564
CrashControl CrashDump Disabled mediumtest
Author: Tobias Michalski (Nextron Systems) · 2022-02-24 (modified 2023-08-17) · logsource: product=windows category=registry_set · 2ff692c2-4594-41ec-8fcb-46587de769e0
Detects disabling the CrashDump per registry (as used by HermeticWiper)
Techniques: T1564T1112
PUA - System Informer Execution mediumtest
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) · 2023-05-08 (modified 2024-11-23) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 5722dff1-4bdd-4949-86ab-fbaf707e767a
Detects the execution of System Informer, a task manager tool to view and manipulate processes, kernel options and other low level operations
Techniques: T1082T1564T1543
Potentially Suspicious Execution From Parent Process In Public Folder hightest
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) · 2022-02-25 (modified 2024-07-12) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 69bd9b97-2be2-41b6-9816-fb08757a4d1a
Detects a potentially suspicious execution of a parent process located in the "\Users\Public" folder executing a child process containing references to shell or scripting binaries and commandlines.
Techniques: T1564T1059
Suspicious Executable File Creation hightest
Author: frack113 · 2022-09-05 (modified 2023-12-11) · logsource: product=windows category=file_event · 74babdd6-a758-4549-9632-26535279e654
Detect creation of suspicious executable file names. Some strings look for suspicious file extensions, others look for filenames that exploit unquoted service paths.
Techniques: T1564
PUA - Process Hacker Execution mediumtest
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) · 2022-10-10 (modified 2024-11-23) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 811e0002-b13b-4a15-9d00-a613fce66e42
Detects the execution of Process Hacker based on binary metadata information (Image, Hash, Imphash, etc). Process Hacker is a tool to view and manipulate processes, kernel options and other low level options. Threat actors abused older vulnerable versions to manipulate system processes.
Techniques: T1622T1564T1543
Sysmon Configuration Error hightest
Author: frack113 · 2021-06-04 (modified 2026-07-23) · logsource: product=windows category=sysmon_error · 815cd91b-7dbc-4247-841a-d7dd1392b0a8
Detects when an adversary is trying to hide it's action from Sysmon logging based on error messages
Techniques: T1564
Virtualbox Driver Installation or Starting of VMs lowtest
Author: Janantha Marasinghe · 2020-09-26 (modified 2025-07-29) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · bab049ca-7471-4828-9024-38279a4c04da
Adversaries can carry out malicious operations using a virtual instance to avoid detection. This rule is built to detect the registration of the Virtualbox driver or start of a Virtualbox VM.
Techniques: T1564.006T1564
Suspicious Creation with Colorcpl hightest
Author: frack113 · 2022-01-21 (modified 2023-01-05) · logsource: product=windows category=file_event · e15b518d-b4ce-4410-a9cd-501f23ce4a18
Once executed, colorcpl.exe will copy the arbitrary file to c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\color\
Techniques: T1564
Mount Execution With Hidepid Parameter mediumtest
Author: Joseliyo Sanchez, @Joseliyo_Jstnk · 2023-01-12 · logsource: product=linux category=process_creation · ec52985a-d024-41e3-8ff6-14169039a0b3
Detects execution of the "mount" command with "hidepid" parameter to make invisible processes to other users from the system
Techniques: T1564