huntrule

Suspicious WMI Provider Host Spawning Explorer or wlrmdr via Process Creation

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-24
Updated
2026-09-24
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

  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 WmiPrvSE.exe spawning explorer.exe or wlrmdr.exe, an execution chain MirrorFace uses in Operation AkaiRyu to launch its tooling through WMI while abusing rarely spawned Windows binaries as hosts. The WMI provider host does not normally start these processes. This indicates WMI-based execution during an espionage intrusion reviving the ANEL backdoor.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1047 — drag to rearrange
Malicious WMI Module Loaded by Suspicious Process (via image_loaded)
Suspicious Remote Process Creation via WMIC node
Suspicious Process Spawned by WmiPrvSE for Remote Execution
Malicious Shadow Copy Deletion via WMIC (via process_creation)
Malicious Impacket wmiexec Command Execution via WmiPrvSE Spawning cmd with Admin-Share Output Redirect (via process_creation)
Malicious QDoor Remote Proxy Execution via WMIC Node Process Call Create of svhost from Temp (via process_creation)
Malicious Remote Payload Deployment via WMIC Node Process Call Create with bitsadmin Transfer (via process_creation)
Malicious WMIexec Style Command Output Redirection to Local Admin Share
Suspicious Impacket Style Command Execution with ADMIN Share Output Redirect
Suspicious WMI Provider Host Spawning Explorer or wlrmdr via Process Creation
Pivot detection · T1047 · 9 related

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