huntrule

Windows remote PowerShell session activity via wsmprovhost.exe process relationships

Alerts when wsmprovhost.exe is seen as a process or parent process, indicating remote PowerShell via WinRM.

FreeReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published
2019-09-12
Updated
2026-07-30
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Lateral Movement

  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 flags process creation where wsmprovhost.exe appears either as the executing image or as the parent process image. wsmprovhost.exe is the WinRM host component used to support remote PowerShell sessions, so its presence in the process chain indicates an active remote PowerShell execution context. It relies on Windows process creation telemetry, specifically the image and parent image paths ending with wsmprovhost.exe.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.001 — drag to rearrange
Windows Remote PowerShell via PS Classic (wsmprovhost.exe, HostName=ServerRemoteHost)
Windows Remote PowerShell Session via PS Module ContextInfo and wsmprovhost.exe
WinRM Remote Access to LSASS via wsmprovhost.exe (Windows Process Access)
Malicious Script Host Spawning PowerShell in Gootloader Chain
Suspicious PsExec Service Launching Encoded PowerShell Payload
Suspicious PowerShell Remote Script Execution via IEX DownloadString
Malicious SharePoint ToolShell Post-Exploitation via Encoded PowerShell (via process_creation)
Suspicious In-Memory PowerShell Execution from Web Server via Automation Assembly (via image_load)
Malicious Qilin Chrome Credential Harvesting Script Execution via IPScanner (via process_creation)
Windows remote PowerShell session activity via wsmprovhost.exe process relationships
Pivot detection · T1059.001 · 9 related

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