Individual skill
hunting-for-persistence-via-wmi-subscriptions
Hunt for adversary persistence through Windows Management Instrumentation event subscriptions by monitoring WMI consumer, filter, and binding creation events that execute malicious code triggered by system events.
internal/tools/skills/data/threat-hunting/hunting-for-persistence-via-wmi-subscriptions/SKILL.md
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- Last checked
- Nov 9, 2026
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- Repository last updated
- Nov 9, 2026
- License
- Apache-2.0
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- cybersecurity Repository topic
- security Repository topic
- bug-bounty Repository topic
- automation Repository topic
- autonomous-pentesting Repository topic
- ai-agent Repository topic
- ai-security Repository topic
- ethical-hacking Repository topic
- golang Repository topic
- penetration-testing Repository topic
- threat-hunting Declared skill tag
- wmi-persistence Declared skill tag
- mitre-t1546-003 Declared skill tag
- event-subscription Declared skill tag
- windows Declared skill tag
- endpoint-detection Declared skill tag
- security Derived category
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# Hunting for Persistence via WMI Subscriptions
## When to Use
- When proactively searching for fileless persistence mechanisms in Windows environments
- After threat intelligence reports indicate WMI-based persistence by APT groups (APT29, APT32, FIN8)
- When investigating systems where malware persists across reboots despite cleanup attempts
- During incident response when standard persistence locations (Run keys, scheduled tasks) are clean
- When WmiPrvSe.exe is observed spawning unexpected child processes
## Detection Gaps & Validation
- **Without Sysmon EID 19/20/21, you're relying on Event 5861 alone** — and 5861 logs permanent consumer creation but not all filter activity, so partial visibility produces false-negative "clean" results.
- **Payload lives in the consumer/filter properties (fileless):** an `ActiveScriptEventConsumer` carries the VBScript inline, so no child process appears until the trigger fires — process-only hunts miss dormant subscriptions.