It' possible to persist in the userland by abusing word library add-ins by putting your malicious DLL into a Word's trusted location. Once the DLL is there, the Word will load it next time it is run.
Get Word's trusted locations where library add-ins can be dropped:
{% tabs %} {% tab title="attacker@target" %}
Get-ChildItem "hkcu:\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Security\Trusted Locations"{% endtab %} {% endtabs %}
Those trusted locations are actually defined in Word's Security Center if you have access to the GUI:
Let's create a simple DLL that will launch a notepad.exe once the DLL addin is loaded:
Compile the DLL and copy it over to Startup folder and rename it to evilm64.wll:
mv .\evilm64.dll .\evilm64.wll
Next time the victim opens up Word, evilm64.wll will be loaded and executed:
Interesting to note that Process Explorer does not see the evilm64.wll loaded in any of the currently running processes:
...although we can definitely see that the add-in is now recognized by Word:
{% hint style="info" %} This technique did not work for me on Office 365 version, but worked on Office Professional. Not sure if there's a bug in the 365 version or it's just a limitation of that version. {% endhint %}
{% embed url="https://www.mdsec.co.uk/2019/05/persistence-the-continued-or-prolonged-existence-of-something-part-1-microsoft-office/" %}
{% embed url="https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/add-in-opportunities-for-office-persistence/" %}