T1620 — Reflective Code Loading

# T1620 - Reflective Code Loading

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Reflective Code Loading activity in the context of Stealth: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.

## D3FEND Mappings
| D3FEND Technique | Relationship | Practical SOC Action |
|---|---|---|
| Process Segment Execution Prevention | Harden | Apply Process Segment Execution Prevention to reduce this technique's viability before an incident occurs. |

## Investigation Steps
1. Review Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR alerts and timeline for the affected host or identity.
2. Check Sentinel analytics rules and incidents correlated with this technique.
3. Review Entra ID sign-in and audit logs if the technique involves an identity or cloud resource.

## Evidence to Collect
- Host or resource affected
- Account or identity involved
- Timestamp of the activity
- Related process, file, or network artifact
- Any preceding or follow-on alerts

## Response Actions
| Action | Risk | Automation Safe | Approval Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contain the affected host or account | Medium | No | Yes |
| Collect and preserve evidence | Low | Yes | No |

## KQL
```kql
DeviceEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(24h)
| where ActionType has "<tune to T1620>"
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Reflective Code Loading activity observed on a privileged account or critical system.
- Activity follows or precedes other suspicious behaviour in the same investigation.
- Automated triage cannot confidently rule out malicious intent.

## False Positive Considerations
- Legitimate administrative or maintenance activity matching this pattern.
- Approved security testing or red team exercise.
- Known benign software producing similar telemetry.

Generated by SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix.

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• /api/techniques/T1620.json
• /api/recommendations/T1620.json
• /api/d3fend/T1620.json
• /api/mappings/T1620.json
• /api/confluence/T1620.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1620.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1620",
  "name": "Reflective Code Loading",
  "priority": "high",
  "status": "draft",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Stealth"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "Linux",
    "macOS",
    "Windows"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries may reflectively load code into a process in order to conceal the execution of malicious payloads. Reflective loading involves allocating then executing payloads directly within the memory of the process, vice creating a thread or process backed by a file path on disk (e.g., [Shared Modules](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1129))...",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Reflective Code Loading activity in the context of Stealth: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.",
  "d3fend_mappings": [
    {
      "id": "D3-PSEP",
      "name": "Process Segment Execution Prevention",
      "relationship": "harden",
      "practical_action": "Apply Process Segment Execution Prevention to reduce this technique's viability before an incident occurs.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "investigation_steps": {
    "microsoft": [
      "Review Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR alerts and timeline for the affected host or identity.",
      "Check Sentinel analytics rules and incidents correlated with this technique.",
      "Review Entra ID sign-in and audit logs if the technique involves an identity or cloud resource."
    ],
    "generic": [
      "Confirm whether the observed reflective code loading activity matches expected administrative or application behaviour.",
      "Identify the host, account, or resource where the activity occurred and its business criticality.",
      "Check for related alerts before and after this activity to reconstruct the broader intrusion timeline.",
      "Real detection reference: \"Suspicious Process Execution Detected via Defend for Containers\" -- This rule detects the execution of an interactive process from a suspicious directory inside a container. The suspicious directories are /tmp, /dev/shm, /var/tmp, /run, /var/run, /mnt, /media, and /boot. Adversaries may use these directories to execute malicious code or exfiltrate data."
    ]
  },
  "evidence_to_collect": [
    "Host or resource affected",
    "Account or identity involved",
    "Timestamp of the activity",
    "Related process, file, or network artifact",
    "Any preceding or follow-on alerts"
  ],
  "response_actions": [
    {
      "name": "Contain the affected host or account",
      "category": "Containment",
      "risk": "Medium",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "Defender for Endpoint / Entra ID",
      "notes": "Requires approval -- confirm malicious intent before isolating a host or disabling an account."
    },
    {
      "name": "Collect and preserve evidence",
      "category": "Investigation",
      "risk": "Low",
      "automation_safe": true,
      "approval_required": false,
      "tool": "Defender for Endpoint",
      "notes": "Safe -- read-only evidence collection."
    }
  ],
  "queries": {
    "kql": [
      {
        "name": "Starting point for T1620",
        "description": "Generic starting query -- tune to the specific data source relevant to this technique.",
        "query": "DeviceEvents\n| where TimeGenerated > ago(24h)\n| where ActionType has \"<tune to T1620>\""
      }
    ],
    "spl": [],
    "esql": [
      {
        "name": "279e272a-91d9-4780-878c-bfcac76e6e31 — Suspicious Process Execution Detected via Defend for Containers",
        "description": "(EQL) This rule detects the execution of an interactive process from a suspicious directory inside a container. The suspicious directories are /tmp, /dev/shm, /var/tmp, /run, /var/run, /mnt, /media, and /boot. Adversaries may use these directories to execute malicious code or exfiltrate data. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "process where event.type == \"start\" and event.action == \"exec\" and process.interactive == true and (\n  process.executable like (\n    \"/tmp/*\", \"/dev/shm/*\", \"/var/tmp/*\", \"/run/*\", \"/var/run/*\", \"/mnt/*\", \"/media/*\", \"/boot/*\"\n  ) or\n  // Hidden process execution\n  process.name like \".*\"\n) and container.id like \"?*\""
      },
      {
        "name": "acf738b5-b5b2-4acc-bad9-1e18ee234f40 — Suspicious Managed Code Hosting Process",
        "description": "(EQL) Identifies a suspicious managed code hosting process which could indicate code injection or other form of suspicious code execution. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "file where host.os.type == \"windows\" and event.type != \"deletion\" and\n  file.name : (\"wscript.exe.log\",\n               \"cscript.exe.log\",\n               \"mshta.exe.log\",\n               \"wmic.exe.log\",\n               \"svchost.exe.log\",\n               \"dllhost.exe.log\",\n               \"cmstp.exe.log\",\n               \"regsvr32.exe.log\")"
      }
    ]
  },
  "automation": {
    "safe": [
      "Add recommendation as Sentinel incident comment.",
      "Run enrichment queries.",
      "Create ServiceNow SecOps task."
    ],
    "approval_required": [
      "Contain or disable the affected host/account.",
      "Any change to production configuration."
    ]
  },
  "escalation_criteria": [
    "Reflective Code Loading activity observed on a privileged account or critical system.",
    "Activity follows or precedes other suspicious behaviour in the same investigation.",
    "Automated triage cannot confidently rule out malicious intent."
  ],
  "false_positive_considerations": [
    "Legitimate administrative or maintenance activity matching this pattern.",
    "Approved security testing or red team exercise.",
    "Known benign software producing similar telemetry."
  ],
  "confluence": {
    "title": "T1620 - Reflective Code Loading Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}