Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) has been used by Windows administrators for various system management operations since Windows NT. As WMI is often used to automate administrative tasks, it is of equal use for attackers as it is for defenders. It is very helpful to understand WMI and its working to be able to fully utilize its power both for Red and Blue teams.
In this training through demonstrations and hands-on, we will discuss how WMI and CIM can be utilized for offensive as well as defensive security. Different utilities like PowerShell built-in cmdlets, PowerShell scripts, native windows tools and Linux tools will be discussed. Various attacks like enumeration and information gathering, lateral movement, persistence, backdoors, modifying security descriptors etc. will be executed by utilizing WMI. We will also discuss how WMI can be used for agentless monitoring, detection of above mentioned attacks and more.