sigmamediumHunting

Potential Lateral Movement via Windows Remote Shell

Detects a child process spawned by 'winrshost.exe', which suggests remote command execution through Windows Remote Shell (WinRs) and may indicate potential lateral movement activity.

MITRE ATT&CK

T1021.006

lateral-movement

Detection Query

selection:
  ParentImage|endswith: \winrshost.exe
filter_main_conhost:
  Image: C:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe
condition: selection and not 1 of filter_main_*

Author

Liran Ravich

Created

2025-10-22

Data Sources

windowsProcess Creation Events

Platforms

windows

References

Tags

attack.lateral-movementattack.t1021.006

Raw Content

title: Potential Lateral Movement via Windows Remote Shell
id: 79df3f68-dccb-48e9-9171-b75cbc37c51d
status: experimental
description: |
    Detects a child process spawned by 'winrshost.exe', which suggests remote command execution through Windows Remote Shell (WinRs) and may indicate potential lateral movement activity.
references:
    - https://cardinalops.com/blog/living-off-winrm-abusing-complexity-in-remote-management/
    - https://www.ired.team/offensive-security/lateral-movement/winrs-for-lateral-movement
author: Liran Ravich
date: 2025-10-22
tags:
    - attack.lateral-movement
    - attack.t1021.006
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        # Note: Example of command to simulate (winrm needs to be enabled): "c:\Windows\System32\winrs.exe" powershell
        ParentImage|endswith: '\winrshost.exe'
    filter_main_conhost:
        Image: 'C:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe'
    condition: selection and not 1 of filter_main_*
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate use of WinRM within the organization
level: medium