Suspicious Child Process Spawned by WMI Provider Host (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-01
Updated
2026-09-01

ATT&CK techniques

Execution
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the WMI Provider Host (WmiPrvSE.exe) spawning a command shell or script interpreter, an execution pattern that indicates local or remote code execution through Windows Management Instrumentation. WMI is a top execution and lateral-movement technique in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report because it runs under a trusted service and leaves little on disk. Detecting interpreter children of WmiPrvSE surfaces WMI-based hands-on activity.

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Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.