Suspicious WMIC Execution from Anomalous Parent Process (via process_creation)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-08-06
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Discovery
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Persistence

  5. Priv Esc

  6. Defense Evasion

  7. Cred Access

  8. Lateral Movement

  9. Collection

  10. C2

  11. Exfiltration

  12. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects wmic being spawned by an anomalous parent such as an Office application, browser or scripting host. Legitimate WMIC use rarely originates from these processes, so this parent-child relationship points to WMI being abused for execution or discovery following initial access.

Related detections9 linkedT1047 — drag to rearrange
Malicious Shadow Copy Deletion via WMIC via Process Creation (via process_creation)
Suspicious System Reconnaissance Output Redirected to PDF File (via process_creation)
Suspicious Phantom Taurus mssq.bat SQL Execution via WMI (via process_creation)
Suspicious External Address Reconnaissance via curl to ifconfig me via process_creation
Malicious Antivirus Removal via WMIC Product Uninstall
Suspicious Remote Process Creation via WMIC by Mallox
Malicious Akira Shadow Copy Deletion via PowerShell WMI (via process_creation)
Suspicious Sysinternals EULA Acceptance Registry Write Linked to INC Ransomware
Malicious Shadow Copy Deletion via WMI PowerShell
Suspicious WMIC Execution from Anomalous Parent Process (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.