Suspicious Security Software Uninstallation via WMIC Product Call Uninstall (Chaos Ransomware)

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 use of WMIC to silently uninstall installed software via the product call uninstall method. The Chaos ransomware group leverages this to remove multi-factor authentication agents and security tooling prior to encryption. Programmatic uninstallation of defensive software is an impair-defenses technique that precedes impact.

Related detections9 linkedT1685 — drag to rearrange
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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 Software Uninstallation via WMIC Product Call Uninstall (Chaos Ransomware)
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.