Hijacking DLLs in Windows

The first argument of a program's command line, typically reflecting the program's name/path and often referred to as `argv[0]`, can in most cases be set to an arbitrary value without affecting the process' flow. Making the case against `argv[0]`, this post demonstrates how it can be used to deceive security analysts, bypass detections and break...

By manipulating environment variables on process level, it is possible to let trusted applications load arbitrary DLLs and execute malicious code. This post lists nearly 100 executables vulnerable to this type of DLL Hijacking on Windows 11 (21H2); it is demonstrated how this can achieved with just three lines of VBScript.

Many Windows applications have multiple ways in which the same command line can be expressed, usually for compatibility or ease-of-use reasons. As a result, command-line arguments are implemented inconsistently making detecting specific commands harder due to the number of variations. This post shows how more than 40 often-used, built-in Windows...

PowerShell has built-in functionality to save sensitive plaintext data to an encrypted object called `SecureString`. Malicious actors have exploited this functionality as a means to obfuscate PowerShell commands. This blog post discusses `SecureString`, examples seen in the wild, and presents a tool...

By adding two parameters to any Google Search URL, you can replace search results with a Knowledge Graph card of your choice. A malicious user can use this to generate false information or 'fake news'.