T1137: Office Application Startup
Adversaries may leverage Microsoft Office-based applications for persistence between startups. Microsoft Office is a fairly common application suite on Windows-based operating systems within an enterprise network. There are multiple mechanisms that can be used with Office for persistence when an Office-based application is started; this can include the use of Office Template Macros and add-ins.
A variety of features have been discovered in Outlook that can be abused to obtain persistence, such as Outlook rules, forms, and Home Page.[1] These persistence mechanisms can work within Outlook or be used through Office 365.[2]
Security context for executives and security teams
T1137: Office Application Startup describes Adversaries may leverage Microsoft Office-based applications for persistence between startups. Microsoft Office is a fairly common application suite on Windows-based operating systems within an enterprise network. There are multiple mechanisms that can be used with Office for persistence when an Office-based application is started; this can include the use of Office Template Macros and add-ins. A variety of features have been discovered in Outlook that can be abused to obtain persistence, such as Outlook rules, for...
Executive priority
T1137: Office Application Startup is an official MITRE ATT&CK technique. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.
Technical view
Security teams should validate T1137: Office Application Startup by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (persistence), supported platforms (Windows, Office Suite), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
- Identity, privilege, and authentication events
- Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry
Detection direction
- Validate whether T1137: Office Application Startup appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
- Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
- Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.
Mitigation priorities
- Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
- Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
- Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits
Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.
This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Office Application Startup
Adversaries may leverage Microsoft Office-based applications for persistence between startups. Microsoft Office is a fairly common application suite on Windows-based operating systems within an enterprise network. There are multiple mechanisms that can be used with Office for persistence when an Office-based application is started; this can include the use of Office Template Macros and add-ins.
A variety of features have been discovered in Outlook that can be abused to obtain persistence, such as Outlook rules, forms, and Home Page.[1] These persistence mechanisms can work within Outlook or be used through Office 365.[2]
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.
Related techniques
This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1137.006 | Add-insSub-technique | Add-ins subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1137.005 | Outlook RulesSub-technique | Outlook Rules subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1137.002 | Office TestSub-technique | Office Test subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1137.001 | Office Template MacrosSub-technique | Office Template Macros subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1137.004 | Outlook Home PageSub-technique | Outlook Home Page subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1137.003 | Outlook FormsSub-technique | Outlook Forms subtechnique of this object. |
Groups, software, and campaigns
G0050: APT32
APT32 is a suspected Vietnam-based threat group that has been active since at least 2014. The group has targeted multiple private sector industries as well as foreign governments, dissidents, and journalists with a strong focus on Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia. They have extensively used strategic web compromises to compromise victims.[1][2][3]
G0047: Gamaredon Group
Gamaredon Group is a suspected Russian cyber espionage group that has targeted military, law enforcement, judiciary, non-profit, and non-governmental organizations in Ukraine since at least 2013. The name Gamaredon Group derives from a misspelling of the word "Armageddon," found in early campaigns.[1][2][3][4][5]
In November 2021, the Ukrainian government publicly attributed Gamaredon Group to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Center 18, an assessment later supported by multiple independent cybersecurity researchers. [6][5]
All related ATT&CK context
Mitigation direction
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(3)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.0 | 1.4 | Older bundle | 0f8a5bcdd72c… | ||
| 19.2 | 1.4 | Current bundle | 0f8a5bcdd72c… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.4 | Older bundle | 0f8a5bcdd72c… |
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.
- [1]SensePost Ruler GitHub
SensePost. (2016, August 18). Ruler: A tool to abuse Exchange services. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
Open source URL - [2]TechNet O365 Outlook Rules
Koeller, B.. (2018, February 21). Defending Against Rules and Forms Injection. Retrieved November 5, 2019.
Open source URL - [3]CrowdStrike Outlook Forms
Parisi, T., et al. (2017, July). Using Outlook Forms for Lateral Movement and Persistence. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
Open source URL - [4]Microsoft Detect Outlook Forms
Fox, C., Vangel, D. (2018, April 22). Detect and Remediate Outlook Rules and Custom Forms Injections Attacks in Office 365. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
Open source URL - [5]Outlook Today Home Page
Soutcast. (2018, September 14). Outlook Today Homepage Persistence. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
Open source URL - [6]SensePost NotRuler
SensePost. (2017, September 21). NotRuler - The opposite of Ruler, provides blue teams with the ability to detect Ruler usage against Exchange. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
Open source URL - [7]mitre-attackT1137Open source URL
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