Suspicious Remote Process Creation via WMIC Process Call Create (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-04
Updated
2026-09-04

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 wmic.exe invoking process call create, frequently against a remote node, which spawns a process through WMI for lateral movement or remote execution. WMIC-based remote execution is a technique tracked in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report for its use in hands-on-keyboard intrusions. Detecting this invocation surfaces attacker movement that blends into legitimate management traffic.

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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.