Suspicious Impacket WMIExec Command Execution Pattern Linked to Salt Typhoon

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-03
Updated
2026-10-03

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 command shell being spawned with the quiet-mode output-redirection pattern that Impacket wmiexec uses to capture results over an admin share, a remote-execution technique used by Salt Typhoon. The tool runs cmd with /Q /c and redirects output to a file on ADMIN$, so this distinctive command structure is a strong indicator of Impacket-based lateral movement.

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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.