Detection: Windows WinPEAS PowerShell Script Execution

Updated Date: 2026-04-13 ID: 5cb208df-e1aa-478d-ab2f-8270ff9999b9 Author: Raven Tait, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

Detects the execution of the WinPEAS PowerShell script via default function names used within the script. winPEAS is a Windows tool that stands for Windows Privilege Escalation Awesome Script. Similar to its Linux counterpart, linpeas.sh, winPEAS is designed to automate the process of identifying potential privilege escalation paths on Windows systems.

Search

 1`powershell`
 2EventID="4104"
 3ScriptBlockText IN (
 4    "*returnHotFixID*",
 5    "*Start-ACLCheck*",
 6    "*UnquotedServicePathCheck*",
 7    "*Get-ClipBoardText*"
 8)
 9
10| fillnull
11
12| stats count min(_time) as firstTime
13              max(_time) as lastTime
14  by Computer EventID ScriptBlockText signature signature_id user_id vendor_product Guid
15     Opcode Name Path ProcessID ScriptBlockId
16
17
18| rename Computer as dest
19
20| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
21
22| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
23
24| `windows_winpeas_powershell_script_execution_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Powershell Script Block Logging 4104	Windows	`'XmlWinEventLog'`	`'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
powershell	`(source=WinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational OR source="XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational" OR source=WinEventLog:PowerShellCore/Operational OR source="XmlWinEventLog:PowerShellCore/Operational")`
windows_winpeas_powershell_script_execution_filter	`search *`

windows_winpeas_powershell_script_execution_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1590	Gather Victim Network Information	Reconnaissance
T1007	System Service Discovery	Discovery
T1082	System Information Discovery	Discovery
T1033	System Owner/User Discovery	Discovery
T1592.002	Software	Reconnaissance
T1592.004	Client Configurations	Reconnaissance
T1016	System Network Configuration Discovery	Discovery
T1615	Group Policy Discovery	Discovery

Exploitation

Reconnaissance

DE.CM

CIS 10

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Notable	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type TTP. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting and generate Notable Events.

Implementation

The detection is based on data that originates from Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents. These agents are designed to provide security-related telemetry from the endpoints where the agent is installed. To implement this search, you must ingest logs that contain the process GUID, process name, and parent process. Additionally, you must ingest complete command-line executions. These logs must be processed using the appropriate Splunk Technology Add-ons that are specific to the EDR product. The logs must also be mapped to the Processes node of the Endpoint data model. Use the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to normalize the field names and speed up the data modeling process.

Known False Positives

Legitimate security assessments or administrative audits may run WinPEAS for privilege escalation checks. Exclude trusted security tools to reduce false alerts.

Associated Analytic Story

Windows Post-Exploitation

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Potential WinPEAS PowerShell activity observed on $dest$ via script block $ScriptBlockId$.

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
dest	system	50	No Threat Objects

References

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carlospolop/PEASS-ng/master/winPEAS/winPEASps1/winPEAS.ps1

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational`	`XmlWinEventLog`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational`	`XmlWinEventLog`

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 1