Sigma rule: Uncommon Child Process Of Appvlp.EXE

Rule

Title

Uncommon Child Process Of Appvlp.EXE

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Sreeman

Date

2020-03-13

Modified

2023-11-09

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_appvlp_uncommon_child_process.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects uncommon child processes of Appvlp.EXE
Appvlp or the Application Virtualization Utility is included with Microsoft Office. Attackers are able to abuse "AppVLP" to execute shell commands.
Normally, this binary is used for Application Virtualization, but it can also be abused to circumvent the ASR file path rule folder
or to mark a file as a system file.

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection:
    ParentImage|endswith: '\appvlp.exe'
# Note: Filters based on data from EchoTrail: https://www.echotrail.io/insights/search/appvlp.exe/
filter_main_generic:
    Image|endswith:
        - ':\Windows\SysWOW64\rundll32.exe'
        - ':\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe'
filter_optional_office_msoasb:
    Image|contains: ':\Program Files\Microsoft Office'
    Image|endswith: '\msoasb.exe'
filter_optional_office_skype:
    Image|contains|all:
        - ':\Program Files\Microsoft Office'
        - '\SkypeSrv\'
    Image|endswith: '\SKYPESERVER.EXE'
filter_optional_office_msouc:
    Image|contains: ':\Program Files\Microsoft Office'
    Image|endswith: '\MSOUC.EXE'
condition: selection and not 1 of filter_main_* and not 1 of filter_optional_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Unknown

Tags

• attack.stealth
• attack.t1218
• attack.execution

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1218

References

• https://lolbas-project.github.io/lolbas/OtherMSBinaries/Appvlp/

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_appvlp_uncommon_child_process.yml