Active Call Stack Spoofing: Validate the Story Behind the Frames
Call stacks help explain who requested a sensitive operation. Active spoofing attempts to present trusted ancestry while execution is in progress, so defenders must validate frames against independent evidence.
No synthetic-frame construction, context-switching sequence, stack layout, or working spoofing code is provided.
A stack is evidence, not identity
Trusted module names are insufficient. Each return should map to plausible executable code, agree with call-site bytes and unwind metadata, and fit the thread's memory and execution history.
Detection and forensics
- Flag return addresses without plausible call sites or valid unwind paths.
- Correlate private executable memory, recent stack writes, and thread-context changes.
- Compare user-mode frames with kernel, hardware, and control-flow telemetry.
- Preserve raw stack bytes, contexts, mappings, symbols, unwind data, and CET events.
Callbacks, fibers, exceptions, tail calls, JIT runtimes, and optimized code require application-aware baselines. Use WinDbg samples, Volatility 3, Ghidra, and Sigma. A safe lab can score synthetic event records containing consistent and inconsistent frame metadata.
ATT&CK and controls
This may support T1036 Masquerading or T1562.001 Impair Defenses; it is not a CVE. Enable hardware-enforced stack protection where compatible, retain raw addresses, collect kernel evidence for critical events, restrict unsigned execution, and score stack anomalies with memory behavior.