Microsoft Build Engine Started by an Office Application
An instance of MSBuild, the Microsoft Build Engine, was started by an Office application. This is unusual behavior for the Build Engine and could have been caused by a malicious document executing a script payload.
Detection logic
Its licence does not clear it for publishing here
Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.
Detection requirements
- Platform
- ContainersIaaSLinuxmacOSWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.
- Log source category
- event_index
Known benign triggers
- The Build Engine is commonly used by Windows developers but use by non-engineers is unusual. It is quite unusual for this program to be started by an Office application like Word or Excel.
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
References
| Reference | Cited by |
|---|---|
| blog.talosintelligence.com/building-bypass-with-msbuild/ | Only this detection cites it |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- c5dc3223-13a2-44a2-946c-e9dc0aa0449c
- Tagged by the source as
- Data Source: CrowdstrikeData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Elastic EndgameData Source: Microsoft Defender XDRData Source: SentinelOneData Source: SysmonData Source: Windows Security Event LogsDomain: EndpointNoise: MediumOS: WindowsPerformance: NormalPlatform: WindowsResources: Investigation GuideRule Type: Event Correlation (EQL)Tactic: Defense EvasionUse Case: Threat Detection
Licence
- Published under
- Elastic License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Sep 20, 2026
- Version
- 3