Adversaries may establish persistence and/or elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by AppCert DLLs loaded into processes. Dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are specified in the <code>AppCertDLLs</code> Registry key under <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\</code> are loaded into every process that calls the ubiquitously used application programming interface (API) functions <code>CreateProcess</code>, <code>CreateProcessAsUser</code>, <code>CreateProcessWithLoginW</code>, <code>CreateProcessWithTokenW</code>, or <code>WinExec</code>. (Citation: Elastic Process Injection July 2017)

Similar to [Process Injection](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1055), this value can be abused to obtain elevated privileges by causing a malicious DLL to be loaded and run in the context of separate processes on the computer. Malicious AppCert DLLs may also provide persistence by continuously being triggered by API activity. 
AppCert DLLs
source_name: mitre-attack  url: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/009  external_id: T1546.009     source_name: Elastic Process Injection July 2017  description: Hosseini, A. (2017, July 18). Ten Process Injection Techniques: A Technical Survey Of Common And Trending Process Injection Techniques. Retrieved December 7, 2017.  url: https://www.endgame.com/blog/technical-blog/ten-process-injection-techniques-technical-survey-common-and-trending-process     source_name: TechNet Autoruns  description: Russinovich, M. (2016, January 4). Autoruns for Windows v13.51. Retrieved June 6, 2016.  url: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902     source_name: Sysinternals AppCertDlls Oct 2007  description: Microsoft. (2007, October 24). Windows Sysinternals - AppCertDlls. Retrieved December 18, 2017.  url: https://forum.sysinternals.com/appcertdlls_topic12546.html     