Adversaries may abuse CMSTP to proxy execution of malicious code. The Microsoft Connection Manager Profile Installer (CMSTP.exe) is a command-line program used to install Connection Manager service profiles. (Citation: Microsoft Connection Manager Oct 2009) CMSTP.exe accepts an installation information file (INF) as a parameter and installs a service profile leveraged for remote access connections. Adversaries may supply CMSTP.exe with INF files infected with malicious commands. (Citation: Twitter CMSTP Usage Jan 2018) Similar to [Regsvr32](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/010) / ”Squiblydoo”, CMSTP.exe may be abused to load and execute DLLs (Citation: MSitPros CMSTP Aug 2017) and/or COM scriptlets (SCT) from remote servers. (Citation: Twitter CMSTP Jan 2018) (Citation: GitHub Ultimate AppLocker Bypass List) (Citation: Endurant CMSTP July 2018) This execution may also bypass AppLocker and other application control defenses since CMSTP.exe is a legitimate binary that may be signed by Microsoft. CMSTP.exe can also be abused to [Bypass User Account Control](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1548/002) and execute arbitrary commands from a malicious INF through an auto-elevated COM interface. (Citation: MSitPros CMSTP Aug 2017) (Citation: GitHub Ultimate AppLocker Bypass List) (Citation: Endurant CMSTP July 2018)

Linked Issues

Issuelinks
Linktype Issue
is related to Techniques
is blocked by Detection of Malicious Profile Installation via CMSTP.exe
is blocked by Execution Prevention
is blocked by Disable or Remove Feature or Program
is blocked by Asset Inventories
is blocked by Secure Baseline Configurations
is blocked by Least Functionality
is blocked by User-Installed Software
is blocked by Continuous Monitoring
is blocked by Malicious Code Protection (Anti-Malware)
is blocked by Endpoint File Integrity Monitoring (FIM)
is blocked by Memory Protection
is blocked by Input Data Validation
is blocked by Vulnerability Scanning
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