Detection: Windows WMI Reconnaissance Class Query

Description

The following analytic detects the use of WMIC (Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line) for reconnaissance and system information discovery on Windows endpoints. It identifies command-line queries targeting common Win32 WMI classes such as Win32_OperatingSystem, Win32_Processor, csproduct, Win32_DiskDrive, and Win32_PhysicalMemory, which are frequently leveraged to enumerate hardware, operating system details, and system configuration. Adversaries often use these queries during post-exploitation to fingerprint hosts, assess virtualization, and tailor follow-on activity. While WMIC usage can be legitimate for administrative and inventory tasks, suspicious or unexpected execution—particularly by non-administrative users or uncommon parent processes—may indicate malicious reconnaissance aligned with system discovery techniques.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly` count min(_time) as firstTime max(_time)
 3  as lastTime from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where
 4  (
 5    NOT Processes.parent_process_path  IN (
 6        "*:\\Program Files (x86)\\*",
 7        "*:\\Program Files\\*",
 8        "*:\\Windows\\System32\\*",
 9        "*:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\*"
10    )
11    OR
12    Processes.parent_process_name IN(
13        "cmd.exe",
14        "powershell*",
15        "pwsh.exe"
16    )
17  )
18  AND
19  (
20    Processes.process_name = "wmic.exe"
21    OR
22    Processes.original_file_name = "wmic.exe"
23  )
24  Processes.process IN (
25    "*csproduct*",
26    "*Win32_BaseBoard*",
27    "*Win32_Bios*",
28    "*Win32_DiskDrive*",
29    "*Win32_DisplayConfiguration*",
30    "*Win32_OperatingSystem*",
31    "*Win32_PhysicalMemory*",
32    "*Win32_PnPEntity*",
33    "*Win32_Processor*",
34    "*Win32_ShadowCopy*",
35    "*win32_ShortcutFile*",
36    "*win32_VideoController*"
37  )
38  by Processes.action Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process
39  Processes.parent_process_exec Processes.parent_process_guid Processes.parent_process_id
40  Processes.parent_process_name Processes.parent_process_path Processes.process Processes.process_exec
41  Processes.process_guid Processes.process_hash Processes.process_id Processes.process_integrity_level
42  Processes.process_name Processes.process_path Processes.user Processes.user_id Processes.vendor_product
43
44| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
45
46| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
47
48| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
49
50| `windows_wmi_reconnaissance_class_query_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
CrowdStrike ProcessRollup2	Other	'crowdstrike:events:sensor'	'crowdstrike'
Sysmon EventID 1	Windows	'XmlWinEventLog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational'
Windows Event Log Security 4688	Windows	'XmlWinEventLog'	'XmlWinEventLog:Security'

Macros Used

Annotations

Default Configuration

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

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

Administrators may execute this command for testing or auditing.

Associated Analytic Story

• BlankGrabber Stealer

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

An instance of [$parent_process_name$] spawning [$process_name$] was identified on endpoint [$dest$] by user [$user$] attempting to enumerate system information via WMI classes using the Command [$process$].

References

• https://malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de/details/py.blankgrabber

Detection Testing

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