MITRE ATT&CKsub-technique
T1701.001 PowerShell
- Domain
- ics
- Tactics
- Execution
- Version
- 1.0
- Created
- 2026-09-25
Description
Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution. PowerShell is a powerful interactive command-line interface and scripting environment included in the Windows operating system. 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 (though administrator permissions are required to use PowerShell to connect to remote systems).
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.
PowerShell commands/scripts can also be executed without directly invoking the powershell.exe binary through interfaces to PowerShell's underlying System.Management.Automation assembly DLL exposed through the .NET framework and Windows Common Language Interface (CLI).
Within industrial control system networks, adversaries may abuse the use of PowerShell on overlap assets that run on Microsoft Windows operating systems (Workstations, Data Historians, Human Machine Interfaces, Application Servers, Jump Hosts, etc.).
Related
Subtechnique of · MITRE ATT&CK (1)
- T1701 Command and Scripting Interpreter technique
Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)
- TA0104 Execution tactic
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (5)
References
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kebab/2014/04/28/executing-powershell-scripts-from-c/ Microsoft PSfromCsharp APR 2014
- https://web.archive.org/web/20190508170150/https://silentbreaksecurity.com/powershell-jobs-without-powershell-exe/ SilentBreak Offensive PS Dec 2015
- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742419.aspx TechNet PowerShell
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160327101330/http://www.sixdub.net/?p=367 Sixdub PowerPick Jan 2016