CPENT Practice Question: Privilege Escalation Lateral Movement And Post Exploitation
During a lateral movement phase, a penetration tester needs to move from a compromised Windows workstation to a domain controller. Traditional SMB-based lateral movement using PsExec is blocked by host-based firewalls, but WinRM (Windows Remote Management) port 5985 is open. Which built-in command-line utility should the tester use to establish an interactive remote session?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
winrs -r:TargetServer -u:Administrator -p:Password cmd.exe
WinRM uses port 5985 for HTTP (and 5986 for HTTPS). The native Windows tool designed to interact with remote systems via WinRM is Winrs (Windows Remote Shell) or PowerShell Remoting (Enter-PSSession).
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
rpcclient -U Administrator TargetServer
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect because rpcclient is a Linux utility from the Samba suite, not a native Windows tool using WinRM.
- ✗
nbtstat -A TargetServer -winrm
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect because nbtstat is used for NetBIOS over TCP/IP troubleshooting.
- ✗
mstv -target:TargetServer -port:5985
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect because mstv is not a valid Windows remote management utility.
- ✓
winrs -r:TargetServer -u:Administrator -p:Password cmd.exe
Why this is correct
Correct because winrs is a native Windows command-line tool that leverages WinRM to execute commands remotely.
About these practice questions
This CPENT question is part of Courseiva's 274-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official EC-Council exam blueprint
This CPENT practice question is part of Courseiva's free EC-Council certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CPENT exam.