This hypothesis detects adversaries deploying legacy hacking tools like ArtTrayHookDll.dll to establish persistence and monitor user activity within the environment. The SOC team should proactively hunt for this artifact in Azure Sentinel because its presence often indicates a dormant or overlooked threat that could be leveraged for lateral movement, despite being classified as older software.
rule ArtTrayHookDll {
meta:
description = "Disclosed hacktool set (old stuff) - file ArtTrayHookDll.dll"
author = "Florian Roth"
date = "23.11.14"
score = 60
hash = "4867214a3d96095d14aa8575f0adbb81a9381e6c"
strings:
$s0 = "ArtTrayHookDll.dll" fullword ascii
$s7 = "?TerminateHook@@YAXXZ" fullword ascii
condition:
all of them
}
This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:
This rule contains 2 string patterns in its detection logic.
Here are 5 specific false positive scenarios for the detection rule targeting ArtTrayHookDll.dll, along with recommended filters and exclusions:
Scenario: Legacy ArtRage or Corel Painter Software Updates
ArtTrayHookDll.dll is a known component of legacy creative software suites (specifically older versions of Corel Painter or ArtRage) used by the Design and Marketing departments. When these applications launch or perform background updates, they load this DLL to inject hooks for tray icons and UI customization, triggering the “Hacktool” signature.C:\Program Files\Corel\Painter 2024\ (or specific ArtRage paths). Additionally, exclude the file hash of ArtTrayHookDll.dll if it matches the known vendor signature.Scenario: Scheduled “DeepClean” Maintenance Job
LegacyApp_Maintenance using PowerShell or Task Scheduler. This job scans and cleans temporary files within the C:\ProgramData\ArtTray directory, causing the DLL to be accessed and loaded by the maintenance script (powershell.exe or taskeng.exe).Task Scheduler Host (svchost.exe) or PowerShell.exe AND the execution path contains \ProgramData\ArtTray. Alternatively, suppress alerts occurring between 02:00 and 04:00 UTC during maintenance windows.Scenario: User-Initiated Plugin Installation in Adobe Creative Cloud
ArtTray framework to integrate with *Adobe Photoshop