Elastic Security Detection Rules

Suspicious Image Load (taskschd.dll) from MS Office

Last updated 4 months ago on 2025-03-20
Created 5 years ago on 2020-11-17

About

Identifies a suspicious image load (taskschd.dll) from Microsoft Office processes. This behavior may indicate adversarial activity where a scheduled task is configured via Windows Component Object Model (COM). This technique can be used to configure persistence and evade monitoring by avoiding the usage of the traditional Windows binary (schtasks.exe) used to manage scheduled tasks.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceTactic: ExecutionData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonLanguage: eql
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Scheduled Task/Job (T1053)(opens in a new tab or window)

Execution (TA0002)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Scheduled Task/Job (T1053)(opens in a new tab or window)

License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
winlogbeat-*logs-endpoint.events.library-*logs-windows.sysmon_operational-*endgame-*
Related Integrations

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
any where host.os.type == "windows" and
 (event.category : ("library", "driver") or (event.category == "process" and event.action : "Image loaded*")) and
  process.name : ("WINWORD.EXE", "EXCEL.EXE", "POWERPNT.EXE", "MSPUB.EXE", "MSACCESS.EXE") and
  (?dll.name : "taskschd.dll" or file.name : "taskschd.dll")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Image Load (taskschd.dll) from MS Office in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(opens in a new tab or window).