Detection: Remote Process Instantiation via WMI and PowerShell

Description

The following analytic detects the execution of powershell.exe using the Invoke-WmiMethod cmdlet to start a process on a remote endpoint via WMI. It leverages data from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents, focusing on command-line executions and process telemetry. This activity is significant as it indicates potential lateral movement or remote code execution attempts by adversaries. If confirmed malicious, this could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on remote systems, leading to further compromise and persistence within the network.

Search

1
2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time) as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where `process_powershell` (Processes.process="*Invoke-WmiMethod*" AND Processes.process="*-CN*" AND Processes.process="*-Class Win32_Process*" AND  Processes.process="*-Name create*") by Processes.dest Processes.user Processes.parent_process_name Processes.process_name Processes.process Processes.process_id Processes.parent_process_id 
3| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)` 
4| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
5| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
6| `remote_process_instantiation_via_wmi_and_powershell_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	N/A	'crowdstrike:events:sensor'	'crowdstrike'
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'
Windows Event Log Security 4688	Windows	'xmlwineventlog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Security'

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Implementation

The detection is based on data that originates from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents. These agents are designed to provide security-related telemetry from the endpoints where the agent is installed. To implement this search, you must ingest logs that contain the process GUID, process name, and parent process. Additionally, you must ingest complete command-line executions. These logs must be processed using the appropriate Splunk Technology Add-ons that are specific to the EDR product. The logs must also be mapped to the Processes node of the Endpoint data model. Use the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to normalize the field names and speed up the data modeling process.

Known False Positives

Administrators may leverage WWMI and powershell.exe to start a process on remote systems, but this activity is usually limited to a small set of hosts or users.

Associated Analytic Story

• Active Directory Lateral Movement

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

References

• https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1047/

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/invoke-wmimethod?view=powershell-5.1

Detection Testing

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

Source: GitHub | Version: 3