Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

Security at the WMI Level

At the WMI level, security is based on standard NT security descriptors, which are essentially Access Control Lists (ACLs) combined with information about the scope of their application. An ACL contains a series of Access Control Entries (ACEs), each of which associates a user or group with a set of rights. In an NTFS filesystem, ACEs give users or groups rights to read, write, execute, or otherwise tamper with a file. ACEs that form part of the WMI security descriptors give users or groups various rights to manipulate WMI objects within a namespace.

Note: Namespace Reminder

A namespace in WMI is a logical grouping of objects and classes. A SWbemServices object is always associated with a specific namespace, meaning ...