Windows WMI Process Call Create

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Description

This analytic is to look for wmi commandlines to execute or create process. This technique was used by adversaries or threat actor to execute their malicious payload in local or remote host. This hunting query is a good pivot to start to look further which process trigger the wmi or what process it execute locally or remotely.

• Type: Hunting
• Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud
• Datamodel: Endpoint
• Last Updated: 2022-02-22
• Author: Teoderick Contreras, Splunk
• ID: 0661c2de-93de-11ec-9833-acde48001122

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1047	Windows Management Instrumentation	Execution

Kill Chain Phase

• Installation

NIST

• DE.AE

CIS20

• CIS 10

CVE

Search

| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_wmic` Processes.process = "* process *" Processes.process = "* call *" Processes.process = "* create *" by Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.original_file_name Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process_guid Processes.parent_process_id Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.process_path 
| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)` 
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| `windows_wmi_process_call_create_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

• security_content_ctime
• security_content_summariesonly
• process_wmic

windows_wmi_process_call_create_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

• _time
• Processes.dest
• Processes.user
• Processes.parent_process_name
• Processes.parent_process
• Processes.original_file_name
• Processes.process_name
• Processes.process
• Processes.process_id
• Processes.parent_process_path
• Processes.process_path
• Processes.parent_process_id
• Processes.process_guid

How To Implement

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting logs with the process name, parent process, and command-line executions from your endpoints. If you are using Sysmon, you must have at least version 6.0.4 of the Sysmon TA.

Known False Positives

Administrators may execute this command for testing or auditing.

Associated Analytic Story

• Suspicious WMI Use
• Qakbot
• Volt Typhoon
• IcedID

RBA

Risk Score	Impact	Confidence	Message
25.0	50	50	process with $process$ commandline executed in $dest$

The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

Reference

• https://github.com/NVISOsecurity/sigma-public/blob/master/rules/windows/process_creation/win_susp_wmi_execution.yml
• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/2b804d25418004a5f1ba50e9dc637946ab8733c7/atomics/T1047/T1047.md
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/05/24/volt-typhoon-targets-us-critical-infrastructure-with-living-off-the-land-techniques/
• https://thedfirreport.com/2023/05/22/icedid-macro-ends-in-nokoyawa-ransomware/

Test Dataset

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

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