How can defenders detect this COM hijacking persistence technique?

Defenders should monitor registry keys under HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{b5f8350b-0548-48b1-a6ee-88bd00b4a5e7} and the Wow6432Node variant. Additionally, watch for suspicious DLL files named api-ms-win-downlevel-*._dl in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Installer\{BCDE0395-E52F-467C-8E3D-C4579291692E}\. These indicators can reveal unauthorized modifications that bypass standard Autoruns checks, as discussed in the original article's defense section.