T1546.003sub-technique of T1546 Event Triggered Execution

Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription

Windows5 pieces on this siteT1546.003 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may establish persistence and elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) event subscription. WMI can be used to install event filters, providers, consumers, and bindings that execute code when a defined event occurs. Examples of events that may be subscribed to are the wall clock time, user login, or the computer's uptime.
MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

If this is happening now

Checklists and playbooks to open while the alert is still live.

First-hour playbookMembers

How to find what an operator left behind

You have evicted somebody, or believe you have, and need to be sure there is no way back in.

T1546.003

Detect it

Hunts and rules you can run, each stating what it needs and what else it returns.

Rule packCONSTRUCTED

Sigma endpoint pack: seven rules for the Windows techniques that keep working

Shadow copy deletion, LSASS dumping through comsvcs, long encoded PowerShell, scheduled tasks and services in user-writable paths, WMI subscriptions and a cleared Security log. Each rule ships with the false positives it was written expecting.

T1546.003

Query Vault

Enumerate permanent WMI event subscriptions, the persistence that survives a rebuild of everything else.

T1546.003

The evidence it leaves

Where the traces live, and what each source proves and does not.

Artifact reference

WMI event subscriptions

T1546.003

Practise it

Labs, timelines, evidence packs and tabletop scenarios to work before you need to.

Guided labMembers

Guided lab: the persistence that leaves almost no log

WMI event subscriptions run code on a condition you choose, survive reboots, live nowhere in the filesystem, and log nothing by default. The last of the persistence series, and the one that changes how you think about the other three.

T1546.003

how MITRE says to see it

Detect WMI Event Subscription for Persistence via WmiPrvSE Process and MOF Compilation

Monitor for creation of WMI EventFilter, EventConsumer, and FilterToConsumerBinding objects through WMI or MOF file execution. Detect command-line execution of `mofcomp.exe`, usage of `Register-WmiEvent` via PowerShell, and anomalous child processes of `WmiPrvSE.exe` that indicate triggered execution.

what reduces it

M1040 Behavior Prevention on Endpoint. On Windows 10, enable Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) rules to prevent malware from abusing WMI to attain persistence.
M1018 User Account Management. By default, only administrators are allowed to connect remotely using WMI; restrict other users that are allowed to connect, or disallow all users from connecting remotely to WMI.
M1026 Privileged Account Management. Prevent credential overlap across systems of administrator and privileged accounts.

the rest of T1546

T1546.001 Change Default File Association · not covered yet
T1546.002 Screensaver · not covered yet
T1546.004 Unix Shell Configuration Modification · not covered yet
T1546.005 Trap · not covered yet
T1546.006 LC_LOAD_DYLIB Addition · not covered yet
T1546.007 Netsh Helper DLL · not covered yet
T1546.008 Accessibility Features · not covered yet
T1546.009 AppCert DLLs · not covered yet
T1546.010 AppInit DLLs · not covered yet
T1546.011 Application Shimming · not covered yet
T1546.012 Image File Execution Options Injection · not covered yet
T1546.013 PowerShell Profile · not covered yet
T1546.014 Emond · not covered yet
T1546.015 Component Object Model Hijacking · not covered yet
T1546.016 Installer Packages · not covered yet
T1546.017 Udev Rules · not covered yet
T1546.018 Python Startup Hooks · not covered yet

The description, detection analytics and mitigations are reproduced from MITRE ATT&CK, version 19.2, under its terms of use. The checklists, hunts, labs and everything else linked here are this site’s.