T1574.006

Dynamic Linker Hijacking

Adversaries hijack dynamic linker environment variables to load malicious shared libraries before legitimate system libraries. On Linux, the LD_PRELOAD environment variable causes the dynamic linker to load specified shared objects before all others, allowing function hooking. Attackers may also modify /etc/ld.so.preload to achieve system-wide persistence. On macOS, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES provides equivalent functionality. Groups including APT41, Aquatic Panda, Rocke (cryptomining), and HiddenWasp/Symbiote have used LD_PRELOAD for persistence and rootkit-like behavior — hooking libc functions (execve, readdir) to hide processes and files. The Ebury SSH backdoor and COATHANGER (FortiGate backdoor) used this technique against production infrastructure.

Microsoft Sentinel / Defender
kusto
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(24h)
| where ProcessCommandLine has "LD_PRELOAD" or ProcessCommandLine has "DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES" or ProcessCommandLine has "LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine
| sort by Timestamp desc
| union (
    DeviceFileEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(24h)
    | where FileName == "ld.so.preload" or FolderPath == "/etc"
    | where ActionType in ("FileCreated", "FileModified")
    | where FileName == "ld.so.preload"
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName=InitiatingProcessAccountName, FileName, FolderPath,
             InitiatingProcessFileName, ActionType
)
| sort by Timestamp desc
high severity high confidence

Data Sources

Process: Process Creation File: File Modification Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (Linux)

Required Tables

DeviceProcessEvents DeviceFileEvents

False Positives

  • Memory leak detection tools like Valgrind and AddressSanitizer that use LD_PRELOAD for instrumentation
  • Performance profiling tools (perf, gprof wrappers) that inject profiling libraries via LD_PRELOAD
  • Java and JVM-based applications that may set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to find JNI libraries
  • Legitimate security tools that use LD_PRELOAD for system call interception (e.g., some EDR agents)

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