H3XAOperational intelligence
Live analytical pictureEvidence before assessment
TypeTechnique
External ID—
First seen2026-08-14
Last seen2026-08-14

Confidence

—

PowerShell is a powerful interactive command-line interface and scripting environment included in the Windows operating system. (Citation: TechNet PowerShell) Adversaries can use PowerShell to perform a number of actions, including discovery of information and execution of code. Examples include the Start-Process cmdlet which can be used to run an executable and the Invoke-Command cmdlet which runs a command locally or on a remote computer. PowerShell may also be used to download and run executables from the Internet, which can be executed from disk or in memory without touching disk. Administrator permissions are required to use PowerShell to connect to remote systems. A number of PowerShell-based offensive testing tools are available, including [Empire](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0363), PowerSploit, (Citation: Powersploit) and PSAttack. (Citation: Github PSAttack) PowerShell commands/scripts can also be executed without directly invoking the powershell.exe binary through interfaces to PowerShell's underlying System.Management.Automation assembly exposed through the .NET framework and Windows Common Language Interface (CLI). (Citation: Sixdub PowerPick Jan 2016)(Citation: SilentBreak Offensive PS Dec 2015) (Citation: Microsoft PSfromCsharp APR 2014)

1 recorded

Relationships

revoked-byTechnique
9 external

References

mitre-attack
T1086
open
TechNet PowerShell
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742419.aspx
open
Powersploit
https://github.com/mattifestation/PowerSploit
open
Github PSAttack
https://github.com/jaredhaight/PSAttack
open
Sixdub PowerPick Jan 2016
http://www.sixdub.net/?p=367
open
SilentBreak Offensive PS Dec 2015
https://silentbreaksecurity.com/powershell-jobs-without-powershell-exe/
open
Microsoft PSfromCsharp APR 2014
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kebab/2014/04/28/executing-powershell-scripts-from-c/
open
Malware Archaeology PowerShell Cheat Sheet
http://www.malwarearchaeology.com/s/Windows-PowerShell-Logging-Cheat-Sheet-ver-June-2016-v2.pdf
open
FireEye PowerShell Logging 2016
https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2016/02/greater_visibilityt.html
open