AN0089: Analytic 0089
Execution of binaries with invalid digital signatures, where metadata claims code is signed but validation fails. Behavior is often correlated with suspicious parent processes or unexpected execution paths.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic matters because it highlights Windows programs that appear to claim they are signed, but fail digital-signature validation. For leaders, that is a useful integrity signal: software trust can no longer be assumed just because signing metadata exists. The business value is in confirming whether the SOC can distinguish trusted, expected execution from binaries that are malformed, tampered with, misplaced, or launched from suspicious process chains.
Executive priority
Prioritize this as a control-validation and incident-triage question: do security teams collect enough Windows execution, file metadata, and signature-validation evidence to prove whether important systems are running trusted code? This supports resilience, audit defensibility, and faster incident decisions, especially where signed-code assumptions are used in allowlisting, endpoint policy, or compliance evidence.
Technical view
For Windows coverage, validate that detection logic specifically identifies binaries whose metadata indicates signing but whose digital signature validation fails. Because the ATT&CK object notes correlation with suspicious parent processes and unexpected execution paths, SOC teams should test whether alerts preserve parent-child process context, executable path, signature status, and file metadata together. No ATT&CK tactic or relationship context is supplied, so this should be treated as a generic detection analytic rather than mapped to a specific intrusion phase.
Likely telemetry
- Windows process execution events with executable path and parent process context
- Digital signature validation results for executed binaries
- File metadata indicating claimed signing information
- Executable location/path context to identify unexpected execution paths
- Timestamps and host/user context needed for incident triage
Detection direction
- Confirm the rule distinguishes invalid signatures from merely unsigned files, because the supplied analytic is about claimed signing metadata with failed validation.
- Correlate signature-validation failure with suspicious parent processes or unusual execution paths, as described by the ATT&CK object.
- Tune against known approved software that may generate local signature-validation anomalies, using environment-specific allowlists or software inventory evidence.
- Ensure alert output includes enough context for triage: binary path, parent process, signature status, host, user, and time.
- Do not over-map this analytic to a specific tactic or threat actor; none are supplied in the official fields.
Mitigation priorities
- Establish an inventory of expected signed Windows software and normal execution paths for business-critical systems.
- Validate endpoint and SOC pipelines can collect signature status and process lineage before relying on this analytic operationally.
- Use investigation playbooks to review invalidly signed binaries with unexpected paths or suspicious parents first.
- Where already part of the security architecture, align application control or software trust policies with validated signing status and approved execution locations.
- Document collection and triage evidence for compliance or audit needs, but avoid claiming prevention or detection coverage without local testing.
Analyst notes and limits
The supplied ATT&CK object is a detection analytic, not a technique. Its value is strongest as a SOC validation use case around Windows code integrity, process context, and execution location. The absence of relationship context means there is no official linkage here to specific malware, groups, campaigns, mitigations, or ATT&CK tactics.
Official detection content is not provided, and no relationships are supplied. Local baselines, software inventory, endpoint telemetry quality, and signature-validation implementation details are required to determine noise level, coverage, and response priority.
Analytic 0089
Execution of binaries with invalid digital signatures, where metadata claims code is signed but validation fails. Behavior is often correlated with suspicious parent processes or unexpected execution paths.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | f29f93fcb7c3… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
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[1]
mitre-attack AN0089Open source URL
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