Potential Pikabot Hollowing Activity

calendar Oct 23, 2025 · attack.privilege-escalation attack.defense-evasion attack.t1055.012 detection.emerging-threats  ·
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Detects the execution of rundll32 that leads to the invocation of legitimate Windows binaries. The malware Pikabot has been seen to use this technique for process hollowing through hard-coded Windows binaries

Sigma rule (View on GitHub)

 1title: Potential Pikabot Hollowing Activity
 2id: d8937fe7-42d5-4b4d-8178-e089c908f63f
 3status: test
 4description: |
 5    Detects the execution of rundll32 that leads to the invocation of legitimate Windows binaries.
 6    The malware Pikabot has been seen to use this technique for process hollowing through hard-coded Windows binaries    
 7references:
 8    - https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/b6e8910fb9b3bb1fcddefd35ff0ed8624930d30d6977e11808c8330415685a62
 9    - https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/6bb4cdbaef03b732a93559a58173e7f16b29bfb159a1065fae9185000ff23b4b
10    - https://github.com/pr0xylife/Pikabot/blob/7f7723a74ca325ec54c6e61e076acce9a4b20538/Pikabot_06.12.2023.txt
11author: Andreas Braathen (mnemonic.io)
12date: 2023-10-27
13modified: 2024-01-26
14tags:
15    - attack.privilege-escalation
16    - attack.defense-evasion
17    - attack.t1055.012
18    - detection.emerging-threats
19logsource:
20    product: windows
21    category: process_creation
22detection:
23    selection:
24        ParentImage|endswith: '\rundll32.exe'
25        Image|endswith:
26            # Note: Only add processes seen used by Pikabot to avoid collision with other strains of malware
27            - '\SearchFilterHost.exe'
28            - '\SearchProtocolHost.exe'
29            - '\sndvol.exe'
30            - '\wermgr.exe'
31            - '\wwahost.exe'
32    filter_main_legit_sndvol:
33        Image|endswith: '\sndvol.exe'
34        ParentCommandLine|contains: 'mmsys.cpl'
35    condition: selection and not 1 of filter_main_*
36falsepositives:
37    - Unlikely
38level: high

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