are built-in windows programs vulnerable?
Source: YouTube · John Hammond · published Mar 4, 2025 · 18:10
The video demonstrates how DLL hijacking can be used to achieve arbitrary code execution on a Windows system by exploiting legitimate, built-in programs like dism.exe, even on fully patched machines—highlighting its potential for post-exploitation and privilege escalation 2:01.
Key Takeaways:
• DLL hijacking works by tricking Windows into loading a malicious DLL instead of a legitimate one, leveraging the system’s default DLL search order [1:35–1:55].
• dism.exe, a legitimate Windows utility, is vulnerable because it searches for dism.core.dll in the current directory, allowing an attacker to replace it with a malicious DLL [2:01–2:26].
• A simple C-based DLL with a message box can be created and executed via a reverse shell payload to gain remote access [13:06–14:08].
• Tools like Process Monitor and the hijack.lbs.net resource catalog help identify and detect DLL hijacking opportunities [4:30–5:59, 14:33–15:10].
• Real-world cases, such as Cisco AnyConnect and RMM software, show DLL hijacking as a known vulnerability with no workaround until patching [16:22–16:33].
This illustrates how DLL hijacking remains a viable technique for penetration testers, especially in post-exploitation scenarios, despite being a known risk in widely used software.
Sources:
- 1:35 Explains how DLL hijacking works through Windows' search order and real-world exploitation.
- 2:01–2:26 Details the dism.exe vulnerability and how it can be exploited via directory-based DLL loading.
- 4:30–5:59 Shows use of Process Monitor to detect DLL loading behavior and identify hijacking attempts.
- 14:33–15:10 Introduces hijack.lbs.net as a resource for known DLL hijacking opportunit
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First 800 characters of the transcript
so recently I received this email with this big loud subject line all caps siren Emoji dll hijacking vulnerability in dism.exe it says I recently discovered this vulnerability which allowed me to gain unauthorized remote access to a fully patched and updated Windows 11 machine they go on to explain how they put this together and they made some cool tooling a little python script to be able to streamline it and they communicated this to their antivirus which at the time didn't detect this but now hey that got that cleaned up patched and now they can trigger on that behavior but I do want to caution us on a couple different things here I don't know whether you consider dll hijacking a vulnerability but it might not be strictly unauthorized remote access let me give you a super quick crash co…