Code Execution via Pcwutl.dll

Severity: medium
Author: Julia Fomina, oscd.community
Source: upstream

Detects launch of executable by calling the LaunchApplication function from pcwutl.dll library.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Defense Evasion	`T1218.011` System Binary Proxy Execution: Rundll32

Event coverage

Provider	Event ID	Title
Sysmon	1	Process creation

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: `all of selection_img`

or:
Image|endswith: '\rundll32.exe'
OriginalFileName: RUNDLL32.EXE

Stage 2: `all of selection_cli`

CommandLine|contains: LaunchApplication
CommandLine|contains: pcwutl

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

Field	Kind	Values
`CommandLine`	match	`LaunchApplication` corpus 2 (sigma 2) `pcwutl`
`Image`	ends_with	`\rundll32.exe` corpus 76 (sigma 76)
`OriginalFileName`	eq	`RUNDLL32.EXE` corpus 28 (sigma 25, splunk 3)