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MITRE ATT&CK  /  T1542

T1542

Pre-OS Boot

Stealth Persistence

Description

Adversaries may abuse Pre-OS Boot mechanisms as a way to establish persistence on a system. During the booting process of a computer, firmware and various startup services are loaded before the operating system. These programs control flow of execution before the operating system takes control.(Citation: Wikipedia Booting)Adversaries may overwrite data in boot drivers or firmware such as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) to persist on systems at a layer below the operating system. This can be particularly difficult to detect as malware at this level will not be detected by host software-based defenses.

Platforms

LinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesWindows

Mitigations

  • M1035 — Limit Access to Resource Over Network
  • M1047 — Audit
  • M1051 — Update Software
  • M1026 — Privileged Account Management
  • M1046 — Boot Integrity
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Source: MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise matrix. View on attack.mitre.org →

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