WMI Module Load¶

Metadata¶


id	WIN-190811201010
author	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g
creation date	2019/08/11
platform	Windows
playbook link

Technical Description¶

WMI is the Microsoft implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM). Both standards aim to provide an industry-agnostic means of collecting and transmitting information related to any managed component in an enterprise. An example of a managed component in WMI would be a running process, registry key, installed service, file information, etc. At a high level, Microsoft’s implementation of these standards can be summarized as follows > Managed Components Managed components are represented as WMI objects — class instances representing highly structured operating system data. Microsoft provides a wealth of WMI objects that communicate information related to the operating system. E.g. Win32_Process, Win32_Service, AntiVirusProduct, Win32_StartupCommand, etc. WMI modules loaded by legit processes such as wmiprvse.exe or wmiapsrv.exe are the following

C:\Windows\System32\wmiclnt.dll C:\Windows\System32\wbem\WmiApRpl.dll C:\Windows\System32\wbem\wmiprov.dll C:\Windows\System32\wbem\wmiutils.dll Adversaries could leverage the WMI modules above to execute WMI tasks bypassing controls looking for wmiprvse.exe or wmiapsrv.exe activity.

Hypothesis¶

Adversaries might be leveraging WMI modules to execute WMI tasks bypassing controls monitoring for wmiprvse.exe or wmiapsrv.exe activity

Analytics¶

Initialize Analytics Engine¶

from openhunt.mordorutils import *
spark = get_spark()

Download & Process Mordor File¶

mordor_file = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OTRF/mordor/master/datasets/small/windows/defense_evasion/empire_psinject.tar.gz"
registerMordorSQLTable(spark, mordor_file, "mordorTable")

Analytic I¶

FP Rate	Log Channel	Description
Low	[‘Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational’]	Look for processes (non wmiprvse.exe or WmiApSrv.exe) loading wmi modules

df = spark.sql(
    '''
SELECT `@timestamp`, computer_name, Image, ImageLoaded
FROM mordorTable
WHERE channel = "Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational"
    AND event_id = 7
    AND (
        lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%wmiclnt.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%WmiApRpl.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%wmiprov.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%wmiutils.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%wbemcomn.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%WMINet_Utils.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%wbemsvc.dll"
        OR lower(ImageLoaded) LIKE "%fastprox.dll"
        OR lower(Description) LIKE "%wmi%"
    )
    AND NOT (
        lower(Image) LIKE "%wmiprvse.exe"
        OR lower(Image) LIKE "%wmiapsrv.exe"
        OR lower(Image) LIKE "%svchost.exe"
    )
    '''
)
df.show(10,False)

Detection Blindspots¶

Hunter Notes¶

Stack the processes loading WMI modules and document the activity in your environment.
Stack child processes (if any) of non wmiprvse.exe loading wmi modules

Hunt Output¶

Category	Type	Name
signature	SIGMA	sysmon_wmi_module_load

References¶

https://posts.specterops.io/threat-hunting-with-jupyter-notebooks-part-4-sql-join-via-apache-sparksql-6630928c931e
https://posts.specterops.io/real-time-sysmon-processing-via-ksql-and-helk-part-3-basic-use-case-8fbf383cb54f

Threat Hunter Playbook