Suspicious Security Product Uninstall via wmic product call uninstall

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-11
Updated
2026-09-11

ATT&CK techniques

  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. C2

  13. Exfiltration

  14. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects wmic being used to enumerate a product and invoke call uninstall, the technique Talos IR observed removing the Duo multi-factor agent to weaken defenses before ransomware deployment. Programmatic uninstallation of security or MFA software via WMI is a defense-evasion step that clears obstacles to lateral movement and encryption.

Related detections9 linkedT1685 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Microsoft Defender Services Stopped via sc.exe
Suspicious Microsoft Defender Definitions Removed via MpCmdRun
Suspicious Defender Behavior Monitoring Disable via PowerShell (via process_creation)
Suspicious Windows Defender Real-Time Monitoring Disable (via process_creation)
Malicious Microsoft Defender Real-Time Monitoring Disabled via Set-MpPreference (via process_creation)
Suspicious Windows Defender Exclusion Added via PowerShell via Process Creation (via process_creation)
Malicious TCC AppleEvents Reset via Tccutil
Suspicious ESXi Management Agent Stop via vpxa init Script (via process_creation)
Malicious ESXi Firewall Disable via esxcli (via process_creation)
Suspicious Security Product Uninstall via wmic product call uninstall
Pivot detection · T1685 · 9 related

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