Executable Written and Executed by Microsoft Office Applications

Identifies an executable file written by a Microsoft Office application where that same executable is later ran as it’s own process. This behavior can be indicative of suspicious activity possibly tied to macro objects or technologies used for command execution such as Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE).

id:2b512bec-b28d-4a84-9253-2c691bedb7bc
categories:detect
confidence:high
os:windows
created:12/04/2019
updated:12/04/2019

MITRE ATT&CK™ Mapping

tactics:Execution
techniques:T1204 User Execution, T1173 Dynamic Data Exchange

Query

sequence with maxspan=3d
  [file where file_name == "*.exe" and process_name in ("winword.exe", "excel.exe", "powerpnt.exe")] by file_path
  [process where true] by process_path

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