Detection rules › Sigma
WMI Persistence - Script Event Consumer
Detects the execution of a script event consumer. When scrcons.exe launches, it does so in response to the creation of an ActiveScriptEventConsumer instance and will execute registered JScript or VBScript code as a result. Script event consumers are a built-in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class that automatically executes a predefined script (in VBScript or JScript) whenever a specific system event occurs. Adversaries often abuse script event consumers to maintain persistence on a compromised host by executing a malicious script whenever a specific event occurs.
Known false positives
- Legitimate event consumers
- Dell computers on some versions register an event consumer that is known to cause false positives when brightness is changed by the corresponding keyboard button
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
| Tactic | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Persistence | |
| Privilege Escalation |
Telemetry coverage
| Provider | Record / event type |
|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 1: Process creation |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688: A new process has been created. |
Rule body
title: WMI Persistence - Script Event Consumer
id: ec1d5e28-8f3b-4188-a6f8-6e8df81dc28e
status: test
description: |
Detects the execution of a script event consumer. When scrcons.exe launches, it does so in response to the creation of an ActiveScriptEventConsumer instance
and will execute registered JScript or VBScript code as a result.
Script event consumers are a built-in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class that
automatically executes a predefined script (in VBScript or JScript) whenever a specific system event occurs.
Adversaries often abuse script event consumers to maintain persistence on a compromised host
by executing a malicious script whenever a specific event occurs.
references:
- https://redcanary.com/blog/threat-detection/child-processes/
- https://www.eideon.com/2018-03-02-THL03-WMIBackdoors/
author: Thomas Patzke
date: 2018-03-07
modified: 2022-10-11
tags:
- attack.persistence
- attack.privilege-escalation
- attack.t1546.003
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection:
Image: C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\scrcons.exe
ParentImage: C:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe
condition: selection
falsepositives:
- Legitimate event consumers
- Dell computers on some versions register an event consumer that is known to cause false positives when brightness is changed by the corresponding keyboard button
level: medium
Stages and Predicates
Stage 0: condition
selectionStage 1: selection
selection:
Image: C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\scrcons.exe
ParentImage: C:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe
Indicators
These rows show field, operator, and value matches.
| Field | Kind | Values | Search |
|---|---|---|---|
Image | eq |
| field:"Image" kind:eq value:"C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\scrcons.exe" |
ParentImage | eq |
| field:"ParentImage" kind:eq value:"C:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe" |