Potential Lateral Movement via Windows Remote Shell

SIGMA detection rule by Liran Ravich · GPL-2.0

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.

title: Potential Lateral Movement via Windows Remote Shell
id: 000b6661-928a-b276-901f-a8b94c10f61b
related:
    - id: 79df3f68-dccb-48e9-9171-b75cbc37c51d
      type: derived
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:
    process_creation:
        EventID: 4688
        Channel: Security
    selection:
        # Note: Example of command to simulate (winrm needs to be enabled): "c:\Windows\System32\winrs.exe" powershell
        ParentProcessName|endswith: \winrshost.exe
    filter_main_conhost:
        NewProcessName: C:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe
    condition: process_creation and (selection and not 1 of filter_main_*)
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate use of WinRM within the organization
level: medium
ruletype: Sigma

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Executable code, not a declarative rule

This submission is arbitrary [[ currentRule.format ? currentRule.format.toUpperCase() : '' ]] code, not a declarative detection rule — review it as you would any script before running it, and note that it cannot be safely aggregated or auto-executed alongside YARA/Sigma/Suricata/CRS rules.

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