Adversaries may abuse Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to execute malicious commands and payloads. WMI is designed for programmers and is the infrastructure for management data and operations on Windows systems.^[1] WMI is an administration feature that provides a uniform environment to access Windows system components.

The WMI service enables both local and remote access, though the latter is facilitated by Remote Services such as Distributed Component Object Model and Windows Remote Management.^[1] Remote WMI over DCOM operates using port 135, whereas WMI over WinRM operates over port 5985 when using HTTP and 5986 for HTTPS.^[1],[2]

An adversary can use WMI to interact with local and remote systems and use it as a means to execute various behaviors, such as gathering information for Discovery as well as Execution of commands and payloads.^[2] For example, wmic.exe can be abused by an adversary to delete shadow copies with the command wmic.exe Shadowcopy Delete (i.e., Inhibit System Recovery).^[3]

Note: wmic.exe is deprecated as of January of 2024, with the WMIC feature being “disabled by default” on Windows 11+. WMIC will be removed from subsequent Windows releases and replaced by PowerShell as the primary WMI interface.^[4] In addition to PowerShell and tools like wbemtool.exe, COM APIs can also be used to programmatically interact with WMI via C++, .NET, VBScript, etc.^[4]

References

1. Microsoft. (2023, March 7). Retrieved February 13, 2024.
2. Mandiant. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2024.
3. Microsoft. (2022, June 13). BlackCat. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
4. Microsoft. (2024, January 26). WMIC Deprecation. Retrieved February 13, 2024.

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