huntrule

Windows whoami.exe Execution from Suspicious Parent Processes

Alerts on whoami.exe runs where the parent process is not a typical shell or monitoring agent.

FreeReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) (SigmaHQ), DRL 1.1
Published
2021-08-12
Updated
2026-07-30
AnalysisDetection

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

  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 events where whoami.exe is executed and the parent process is not one of several known, legitimate shells (such as cmd.exe and PowerShell). Attackers commonly use whoami.exe to quickly collect local user context for discovery and follow-on actions. The detection relies on Windows process creation telemetry, matching whoami.exe by filename and evaluating the parent process image path for exceptions and null/empty parent cases.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1033 — drag to rearrange
Suspicious Whoami Discovery Spawned by Windows Script Host via Process Creation (via process_creation)
Suspicious Localized Administrator Account and Group Enumeration After Citrix Bleed Exploitation
Malicious Recon Output Staged in Qlik Sense Fonts Directory by Cactus Ransomware
Suspicious Host Reconnaissance Command Chain via cmd
Malicious Child Process Spawned From n8n Node Process
Suspicious Credential Enumeration via cmdkey List
Suspicious IIS Worker Process Spawning Whoami Reconnaissance
Suspicious Whoami Execution With Output Redirected to a File (via process_creation)
Possible Logged-On Session Discovery via Quser or Qwinsta (via process_creation)
Windows whoami.exe Execution from Suspicious Parent Processes
Pivot detection · T1033 · 9 related

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