Whitefly has consistently used a technique known as search order hijacking to run Vcrodat. This technique takes advantage of the fact that Windows does not require an application to provide a specific path for a DLL that it wishes to load. If no path is provided, Windows searches for the DLL in specific locations on the computer in a pre-defined order. Attackers can therefore give a malicious DLL the same name as a legitimate DLL but place it ahead of the legitimate version in the search order so that it will be loaded when Windows searches for it. Whitefly frequently delivers Vcrodat as a malicious DLL that has the same name as DLLs belonging to legitimate software from various security vendors. The group leverages search order hijacking to assure that its malicious DLLs will be executed. Targeting security applications could allow the attackers to gain higher privileges for the malware, since the vendor’s component may be run with elevated privileges