wermgr.exe

by Microsoft
Operating System

Summary

Windows Error Reporting Manager handles the management and transmission of Windows Error Reporting data. It works alongside WerFault.exe, managing the queue of error reports and sending them to Microsoft or configured enterprise reporting servers.

wermgr.exe is the 36th most commonly executed Windows program in EchoTrail's dataset, observed 1,159,579 times across enterprise environments. It typically runs from C:\Windows\System32 and it is most often launched by svchost.exe.

36th
most commonly executed Windows program
1,159,579
observed executions
high
statistical confidence

Behavior

Top Paths

  • C:\Windows\System3299.83%
  • C:\Windows\SysWOW640.17%

Top Hashes (SHA256)

  • ca8c1979a252a66eff1769ac24103d3b0a505aadb585165ec1d22cad127c35f242.01%
  • 82ad076be8673fb2a7fab23abb48726ba257c9fa29ff690a3c4acd8d4b108ef616.34%
  • f489aae1f59e19d15f44775d77a64686503aebe11aec6167167088ea03b545d513.74%
  • 82c51c73401c6e958c09f50ab3a33e01b67a394a4f5e2dac5cae5037d3b096432.27%
  • c86ca0d12b24f159be5f5ba55c5ca233217e44f08f8da2ee82882c8f93cdb9672.23%
  • 825b0b65ce018916fec958c18653ee1aa6609d537191db301cd43fa3e82eea022.04%
  • edce588f879e657b24037dd0ae3233c97ce9b0e4a115c62bbf00c983ef288a851.17%
  • dbe4f87023b6720a1adbc3d58975b91b435fad75346810e0e621d100f75772df1.06%
  • 1c09759dcd31fdc81bcd6685438d7efb34e0229f1096bfd57d41ecfe614d07dc1.03%
  • 5e5744c0a0c81017281df64bb46399a77c1cfd6fb9ce743b96bbc92cba9d1a9b0.99%

Process Ancestry

Top Grandparents

Top Parents

Top Children

Rare or environment-specific process names are omitted from ancestry tables. Percentages are of all observed relationships.

Security Analysis

What does wermgr.exe normally do?

Located in C:\Windows\System32. Primarily launched by svchost.exe (WER service). Manages error report uploads and cleanup.

When is wermgr.exe suspicious?

Running from a non-standard path. Parent process other than svchost.exe. Spawning child processes. Making outbound connections to non-Microsoft destinations.

How do attackers abuse wermgr.exe?

Similar to werfault.exe — potential name masquerading target. Less commonly abused than werfault.exe.

Detection guidance

Low priority. Validate path and parent process.

False positive notes

Normal background process. cleanmgr.exe (Disk Cleanup) may interact with wermgr.exe when cleaning up error reports.

Related Processes

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Data from EchoTrail's dataset of ~346M Windows process executions. Last extracted 2026-08-04.