Process hollowing Sep 15, 2019 · In this first blog in our series on malware evasion techniques, we present the most widely-used process injection and manipulation techniques. Learn about the new vulnerabilities, alternative methods, and implications for cybersecurity. The idea is rather straight forward: a bootstrap application creates a seemingly innocent process in a suspended state. Process hollowing is a process of running a new process in the address space of a preexisting process. exe is actually running from manage-bde. It involves creating a legitimate process in a suspended state, hollowing out its memory, and replacing it with malicious code. Figure 1 shows the libraries used, along with a declaration of ZwUnmapViewofSection(), which will be used to hollow the process. exe), suspended the process, hollow out the executable's image in its memory and inject malicious code into that virtual memory space of Process hollowing is a method of running arbitrary code in the address space of a separate live process. Jan 24, 2024 · A blog post to explain how we can perform process hollowing with IAT patching. Jul 8, 2024 · Process hollowing is preferred over simple process injection for its superior stealth and evasion capabilities, allowing malware to run under the guise of legitimate processes. Obtaining malicious code 3. calc. Code injection, evasion This lab is my attempt to better understand and implement a well known code injection technique called process hollowing, where a victim process is created in a suspended state, its image is carved out from memory, a malicious binary gets written instead and the program state is resumed to execute the injected code. Jun 30, 2022 · In process hollowing, instead of abusing an already running process, an attacker might start a new process in a suspended state and use a write primitive to introduce their malware module before the process starts running. Feb 3, 2025 · Process Hollowing is a malware technique that impersonates legitimate processes, but Windows 11 (24H2) introduces changes that make it harder to use. This is a sub-technique of process Injection and in the last years one of the most … Process hollowing, sometimes called RunPE, is a technique used by (usually) malicious software that allows a specific program to execute as if it was another program. exe” will be the target process. It works by creating a legitimate process in a suspended state, unmapping its May 14, 2024 · In my first article, we will explore the concept of process hollowing, a method of process manipulation on Windows systems. Apr 12, 2022 · Learn about Process Hollowing, a technique for defense evasion and privilege escalation. I also present a Volatility plugin hollowfind to detect these different types of process hollowing. exe in a suspended state and inject it inside this process. exe) with a malicious executable. To understand how this works, we need to look at how May 6, 2023 · Detailed Overview Process hollowing is a technique that enables the execution of malicious code within the context of a remote process, and its methodology is similar to that of generic process injection. exe by having it point to the newly injected code in its view, after which it resumes the suspended calc. It involves creating a legitimate process, then replacing its code with the code of the malware. The process hollowing attack is used to avoid detection by running as a legitimate process. Jul 8, 2018 · Process Hollowing In continuation of the possible attack vectors, we digress a bit from shell code execution via buffer overflows … Jan 28, 2023 · Process Hollowing Introduction Welcome to my new Article today i Will show you Process Hollowing technique. Process hollowing is a stealthy malware injection technique that evades detection by running malicious code within legitimate processes. . For this example “svchost. Learn how adversaries use process hollowing to evade detection and privilege escalation, and see examples of malware that employ this technique. This technique involves creating a process in a suspended state, then unmapping or hollowing out its memory and replacing it with malicious code. This technique is particularly insidious because it allows the attacker to execute malicious code while appearing to be a legitimate process, thereby evading detection by security software. The loader make severals checks before trying to inject the new PE image. Create Process to Hollow First we need to create our target process that will be hollowed out. exe to process hollowing successfully. 6 Hollow Process Injection (Process Hollowing) Process hollowing, or Hollow Process Injection, is a code injection technique in which the executable section of the legitimate process in the memory, is replaced with a malicious executable. Obtaining suspended process 2. This technique allows an attacker to disguise his malware as a legitimate process and execute malicious code. Techniques used for impact can include destroying or tampering with data. Process hollowing is commonly performed by creating a process in a suspended state then unmapping/hollowing its memory, which can then be replaced with malicious code. This process hollowing implementation is written in C++, the loader is a x64 executable with can inject into x86 and x64 processes. Feb 23, 2022 · The svchost. exe process/thread, which should run the injected code. Mar 11, 2025 · Process Hollowing is a process injection technique that adversaries generally use to bypass process-based defenses by injecting malicious code into a suspended or hollowed process. The process hollowing attack is used by hackers to cause an otherwise legitimate process to execute malicious code. The advantage of this Jun 13, 2023 · Process Hollowing works well with PPID spoofing because of the need to start a new process. exe, which appears as a valid process, signed and verified by Microsoft. Feb 9, 2025 · Process hollowing is commonly performed by creating a process in a suspended state then unmapping/hollowing its memory, which can then be replaced with malicious code. Sep 23, 2020 · With the hollowing process complete and code injection/copying done, the sample now reset the instruction pointer of the suspended process calc. See full list on github. Process hollowing works by mapping another executable into the address space of Learn what process hollowing malware is, how to detect it, and how tools like Fortect can help you stop hidden threats on your Windows PC. Spoofing the new program's parent ID is a good way to make our process look benign and add an extra layer of misdirection. Impact consists of techniques that adversaries use to disrupt availability or compromise integrity by manipulating business and operational processes. A victim process can be created with native Windows API calls such as CreateProcess, which includes a flag to suspend the processes primary thread. com Process hollowing is a code injection technique that runs malicious code under a legitimate process. As the screenshot above shows, cmd. Process hollowing is commonly done by creating a process in a suspended status, then hollowing its memory, which can then be replaced with malicious code. Dec 7, 2024 · Process hollowing, or Hollow Process Injection, is a stealthy technique used by malware to execute malicious code within the address space of a legitimate process. Note that we don’t have to choose svchost. The process then behaves normally to avoid detection while carrying out the malware's commands. W May 25, 2025 · Process hollowing is a classic malware trick: it hijacks a legitimate process, replaces the contents of that process’s memory with its own malicious code, and then continues running as if Process hollowing is a form of code injection, a broad category of cyber-attack techniques that involve inserting malicious code into an existing software process. , svchost. Sep 29, 2024 · The goal today is to get a deeper understanding of exactly how process hollowing works and test out modifying some existing POC code to create my own hollowed process with a meterpreter shell insid… Oct 14, 2021 · 這篇文章將會介紹 Process Hollowing 的原理並輔以程式碼片段加以解說。 根據 Mitre att&ck 的分類，Process Hollowing 是 Process Injection 的一門子類別，又可稱為 cross-process injection。這次的程式展示將以 Windows 作業系統為目標，Windows 的執行檔統稱 portable executables (PE)，因此此項技法又名為 Portable Executable Process hollowing is yet another tool in the kit of those who seek to hide the presence of a process. The typical steps for carrying out process hollowing are: 1. Explore its working, code examples, and real-time exploit. The Malware launcher will create a legitimate process (e. Feb 3, 2025 · Process Hollowing is a sophisticated code injection technique often used by malware to evade detection. Jul 18, 2017 · Process hollowing occurs when a malware unmaps (hollows out) the legitimate code from memory of the target process, and overwrites the memory space of the target process (e. Process hollowing has been used by malware to masquerade their code as legitimate processes. Unmapping target 3. What is process hollowing? Process hollowing is a technique used by malware to hide its malicious behavior from antivirus software. exe process runs under a SYSTEM integrity level, and that will prevent us from injecting inside it from a lower integrity level. Learn how it works, see examples of malware using it, and find out how to protect against it. This technique is used to blend in malware as a legitimate process and using this technique attackers can cause a legitimate process to execute malicious code. Attackers use process hollowing to remove code in an executable file and replaces it with malicious code. This technique allows an attacker to load shellcode into a legitimate Process hollowing is a technique used by attackers to hide malicious code within a legitimate process, making it difficult to detect. Process Hollowing or Hollow Process Injection is a code injection technique in which the executable section of a legitimate process in the memory is replaced with malicious code (mostly malicious executable). May 31, 2017 · Impact (TA0040) The adversary is trying to manipulate, interrupt, or destroy your systems and data. Instead, we could create a process called svchost. Before looking at the different types of process hollowing, lets try to understand […] May 23, 2025 · Process Hollowing is a code injection technique often used by malware to disguise the execution of malicious code. A victim process can be created with native Windows API calls such as <code>CreateProcess</code>, which includes a flag to suspend the processes primary thread. Oct 24, 2018 · Process hollowing is a method of executing malicious code in the address space of a live process. Feb 24, 2023 · Process hollowing is commonly performed by creating a process in a suspended state then unmapping/hollowing its memory, which can then be replaced with malicious code. This attack can be done while evading potential defenses, such as detection analysis software. Mar 21, 2025 · Process hollowing is a stealthy technique used in malware development where an attacker starts a legitimate process and then replaces its executable code with malicious code. 1. This makes the malicious activity appear as if it is Jun 3, 2025 · Process Hollowing is the technique of executing malicious code, in a running legitimate process to avoid detection by process-based defenses. 1 What is Process Hollowing? Process Hollowing is a type of code injection. In some cases, business processes can look fine, but may have been Dec 6, 2016 · In this blog post we will look at different types of process hollowing techniques used in the wild to bypass, confuse, deflect and divert the forensic analysis. This allows the attacker to run their payload while maintaining the illusion that a trusted application is running. It involves creating a benign process in a suspended state, removing its executable code, injecting malicious code, altering the entry point, and then resuming the process. Apr 28, 2020 · Process hollowing is a security exploit in which an attacker removes code in an executable file and replaces it with malicious code. g. 2s9c az osp 2po a2jz9 uwkv9 x052 npuhin dn8cc zhfvr