Individual skill
hunting-for-lateral-movement-via-wmi
Detect WMI-based lateral movement by analyzing Windows Event ID 4688 process creation and Sysmon Event ID 1 for WmiPrvSE.exe child process patterns, remote process execution, and WMI event subscription persistence.
internal/tools/skills/data/threat-hunting/hunting-for-lateral-movement-via-wmi/SKILL.md
Source commit d42f381ad34843e71a42658e5c57290c713e85af
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- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- Yes
- Repository scan complete
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- Skill scan complete
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- Observed behavior
- Instructions only
- Last checked
- Nov 9, 2026
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Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 1,331
- 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
- lateral-movement Declared skill tag
- wmi Declared skill tag
- sysmon Declared skill tag
- mitre-attack Declared skill tag
- process-creation Declared skill tag
- operations Derived category
- security Derived category
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# Hunting for Lateral Movement via WMI
## Overview
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is commonly abused for lateral movement via `wmic process call create` or Win32_Process.Create() to execute commands on remote hosts. Detection focuses on identifying WmiPrvSE.exe spawning child processes (cmd.exe, powershell.exe) in Windows Security Event ID 4688 and Sysmon Event ID 1 logs, along with WMI-Activity/Operational events (5857, 5860, 5861) for event subscription persistence.
## When to Use
- When investigating security incidents that require hunting for lateral movement via wmi
- When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
- When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
- When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques
## Detection Gaps & Validation