AN1100: Analytic 1100
Adversary spawns a process or script to enumerate installed software using WMI, registry, or PowerShell, potentially followed by additional discovery or evasion behavior.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic describes a Windows host behavior where an adversary starts a process or script to inventory installed software through WMI, the registry, or PowerShell. For leaders, the importance is not the software list itself; it is that software discovery can help an intruder decide what security tools, business applications, or vulnerable products are present before taking the next action.
Executive priority
Treat this as a coverage and readiness question for Windows endpoint visibility. Security leaders should ask whether the SOC can see script and process activity that queries installed software, whether that evidence is retained long enough for incident response, and whether alerts can be explained as legitimate administration versus suspicious discovery. This supports incident scoping, control validation, audit evidence, and vulnerability-management prioritization when software inventory behavior appears during an investigation.
Technical view
Validate monitoring for Windows process and script execution associated with installed-software enumeration through WMI, registry access, and PowerShell. Because ATT&CK provides no official detection logic and no relationship context for this analytic, teams should focus on whether the required evidence exists, whether normal IT inventory tooling is understood, and whether suspicious cases can be correlated with adjacent discovery or evasion behavior when present in local telemetry.
Likely telemetry
- Windows process creation events, including parent-child process context and command-line arguments
- PowerShell execution telemetry and script block or module logging where enabled
- WMI activity logs or endpoint telemetry showing WMI-based queries
- Registry access telemetry related to installed software inventory locations
- Endpoint detection and response telemetry for process, script, WMI, and registry activity
Detection direction
- Baseline legitimate software inventory, patch management, administration, and compliance scanning activity to reduce false positives.
- Tune for unusual users, hosts, parent processes, timing, or execution context performing installed-software enumeration.
- Correlate enumeration with other local discovery or evasion signals when available, since the object notes potential follow-on discovery or evasion behavior but provides no specific relationships.
- Confirm PowerShell, WMI, process creation, and registry telemetry are enabled on Windows endpoints; without these sources, coverage will be limited.
- Avoid treating software enumeration alone as conclusive malicious activity; prioritize cases with suspicious context or deviation from known administrative patterns.
Mitigation priorities
- Ensure authorized software inventory and administration mechanisms are documented so defenders can separate expected activity from anomalous enumeration.
- Harden Windows endpoint logging for process creation, PowerShell, WMI, and registry-related activity before relying on this analytic operationally.
- Review least-privilege access for accounts and tools that can perform broad host discovery.
- Integrate software inventory visibility with incident response workflows so unexpected enumeration can be used to scope affected hosts and potential targeting decisions.
- Use findings to inform vulnerability-management prioritization when adversary-like inventory behavior identifies installed products of security or business significance.
Analyst notes and limits
This is a detection analytic object, not a technique object. It has a Windows platform designation and a description of installed-software enumeration via WMI, registry, or PowerShell, but no ATT&CK tactics, official detection text, or supplied relationships. Local baselines are essential because many enterprise tools legitimately enumerate installed software.
The supplied ATT&CK fields do not provide detection pseudocode, data component mappings, tactic mappings, related techniques, adversary use, or mitigation references. Any production rule, severity model, or coverage claim must be derived from local telemetry and validated against known administrative activity.
Analytic 1100
Adversary spawns a process or script to enumerate installed software using WMI, registry, or PowerShell, potentially followed by additional discovery or evasion behavior.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 37481775e00d… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
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mitre-attack AN1100Open source URL
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